Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481

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ScienceDirect

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Spatial variation of technical efficiency of cereal production in

China at the farm level

ZHOU Wen-bin1*, WANG Huai-yu2*, HU Xi3, DUAN Feng-ying1

1
Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, P.R.China
2
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P.R.China
3
Agricultural Genomics Institute at Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shenzhen 518108, P.R.China

Abstract
Rice, wheat and maize are the main staple food crops to ensure the food security in China with diversified climate condition,
cropping system and environmental and socio-economic factors across provinces. Spatial variation of technical efficiency
in farmers’ field is helpful to understand the potential to improve farmers’ yield given the inputs level and reduce the yield
gap. The study is based on a large-scale farm household survey which covered 1 218 rice farmers, 3 566 wheat farmers
and 2 111 maize farmers in the main producing areas. The results indicate that rice farmers are with very high technical
efficiency level, nearly 0.9 on average, with little room to improve the efficiency of agricultural inputs. Similar results have
been found in wheat and maize farmers’ fields, although the technical efficiency levels are lower than that of rice farmers
while still at a high level with obvious variation across regions. Farmers with higher yield level also achieve better technical
efficiency in most locations. Both local environmental and socio-economic factors significantly affect farmers’ technical
efficiency. In the context of urbanization and economic development, improved and new agricultural technologies need to
be prioritized and facilitated to improve cereal yield at farm level.

Keywords: technical efficiency, spatial variation, rice, wheat, maize

(UN 2019). China’s food security is an important worldwide

1. Introduction
China is the most populous country with peak population in
2030 which will have additional 60 million people to be fed
Received 11 October, 2020 Accepted 22 December, 2020
Correspondence ZHOU Wen-bin, Tel/Fax: +86-10-82107841,
E-mail: zhouwenbin@caas.cn; WANG Huai-yu, Tel: +86-10-
68914319, Fax: +86-10-68912483, E-mail: hwang@bit.edu.cn
*
These authors contributed equally to this study.
© 2021 CAAS. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open
access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
doi: 10.1016/S2095-3119(20)63579-1
issue in the context of globalization (Godfray et al. 2010;
Lu et al. 2015). Grain self-sufficiency, especially absolute
self-sufficiency in cereals supply, is prioritized in China’s
food security strategy associated with a series of policies
support to ensure sufficient food supply (Ito and Ni 2013; Lu
et al. 2015). Various efforts, such as agricultural investment
on technology development and farming conditions
improvement, training program on improved technology
adoption and extension, have been made to increase the
grain production continuously to satisfy the increasing food
demand (Huang et al. 2010; Wang et al. 2014, 2018; Cao
et al. 2018).
The yields of rice, wheat and maize have stagnated with
decreasing cropland in most main producing area in China
 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481
(Wei et al. 2015). The yield potential of staple food crops has
reached the ceiling (Cassman et al. 2003; Licker et al. 2010;
Neumann et al. 2010; van Wart et al. 2013), closing the yield
gap between actual yield and yield potential consequently
should be prioritized to improve the productivity (Grassini
et al. 2013; van Ittersum and Cassman 2013; van Ittersum
et al. 2013; Deng et al. 2019). It is needed to find out where
the improvement needs mostly and its potential for the
improvement given the limited land and water resources
(Grassini et al. 2013; Fischer 2015; Long et al. 2015).
Yield potential defines the ideal yield level to be achieved
with perfection in the management of all production factors
determining the yield (Lobell et al. 2009). Although the
yields of crops in many regions reached the 80% of the
maximum yield, there are still some areas to have the
potential (Neumann et al. 2010; Wei et al. 2015).  Yield
at farm level is vital for the productivity analysis as it
decides the crop area and production (Fischer 2015),
their maximum yield level can be taken as the indicator
to measure the yield potential. The efficiency is in turn
important to maximize the production at farm level given
the climate change and environmental pressure (Tilman
et al. 2011; Lu et al. 2015).
Technical efficiency has been applied widely to
investigate the difference between farmer’s practice and
“frontier” production level.  It, as a part of household
economic efficiency, is typically used to evaluate how well
a producer is utilizing an underlying technology including a
set of inputs and technology to produce maximum output
(Farrell 1957; Thiam et al. 2001; Chavas et al. 2005). By
making full use of the inputs and reducing the yield variation
across farms, the improvement of technical efficiency is
helpful to mitigate the overuse of chemical inputs. It is also
considered as a critical approach to increase agricultural
production in developing countries since many empirical
studies indicated that most small-scale rice farmers were
inefficient (Haji 2006; FAO 2012).  technology intervention for yield improvement; second,
The yield gap based on actual grain yield data given
the inputs level can be estimated by the stochastic frontier
production function (Neumann et al. 2010). Previous studies
are based on the farm level, region and country level data
(Lobell et al. 2009; Van Wart et al. 2013). China is a country
with diversified cropping patterns, geographic characters
and farming conditions. Land use and the cropping
pattern are gradually changed due to the climate change,
economic development and urbanization (Wei et al. 2015).
To understand the spatial variation of technical efficiencies
in the production of individual crops could provide useful
information to understand the grain supply and demand
as well as to achieve the sustainable development of food
production (Tian and Wan 2000; Ray et al. 2012; Wei et al.
2015).  were presented in the second section; the main results and
471
Various methods have been applied to estimate the yield
potential, and farmers’ validation is necessary to reduce the
yield gaps between the maximum, experiment and average
yields (Lobell et al. 2009; Affholder et al. 2013; Challinor
et al. 2014; Tao et al. 2015; Deng et al. 2019). Farmers
are motivated to gain profit and reduce uncertainty to
engage in cereal crop farming, however, their performance
varied greatly associated with the diversified geographic
characteristics as well as socio-economic factors (Chen
et al. 2014; Xu et al. 2020). Different from the assumption
by the agronomists that the environmental and biophysical
factors (i.e., weather, soil, water and so on), socio-economic
factors also contribute to the yield loss in farmers’ field in
the economics’ perspective and are subsequently required
to be introduced into the models for the analysis (Lobell
et al. 2009). A large-scale farm survey is required for the
technical efficiency analysis of crops, however, it is costly
and time-consuming (Affholder et al. 2013). Little studies
have been implemented to describe the spatial variation
across locations in the country to provide the details of
China’s grain production potential at farm level.
The paper is to investigate the technical efficiency and
yield difference of rice, wheat and maize across main areas
using farm level data in 2016. The purposes of the study
are not only to analyze the spatial variation of Chinese
cereal production at farm level but also to discuss the
areas for potential grain output improvement associated
with technology development and agricultural policies. The
contribution of the study is as follows. First, the yields of
food crops at farm level, technology adoption and agricultural
inputs of farmers are essential to provide the actual picture
of food production in the field and such detail information is
necessary to understand the actual yields in the field and
farmers’ practice properly. This provides the information
for the extension specialists and policy makers to find
the target farmers and apply the appropriate agricultural
the spatial distribution of farmers’ technical efficiency is
needed to estimate the yield gaps of food crops between
farmers’ actual and potential yields to identify the productive
areas. Improving the efficiency can minimize the waste of
agricultural inputs and reduce the expense of environment
by reducing the chemical inputs;  third, farmers’ average
yield is affected by the demographic characteristics, land
and water resources, inputs, cropping pattern, and farming
activities as well as non-farm activities (Chavas et al.
2005; Silva et al. 2017). To investigate the determinants
affecting the technical efficiency with primary data could be
reference to rethink the current support policies and farmland
protection systems (Wang et al. 2018).
The paper is organized as follows: data and methods
472 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481
discussion were subsequently presented; the last section
provided conclusion.
2. Data and methods
2.1. Survey sites
The data collected were funded by the project of
“Differentiation on the output and efficiency of grain
production and its mechanisms of improvement in China”
led by the Institute of Crop Sciences, Chinese Academy
of Agricultural Science. A total of 6 535 respondents
participated in the survey which was implemented in 2016
including 1 218 rice farmers covering 615 inbred rice farmers
and 603 hybrid rice farmers, respectively, and 3 279 wheat
farmers1 as well as 2 038 maize farmers. The respondents
were farmers who manage the farming. The survey included
information on farmers’ resource endowment, varieties
grown, grain yield, production, and agricultural inputs.
The survey sites for rice include seven rice producing
areas including Heilongjiang, Guangxi, Guangdong,
Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei. The total rice sown
area and rice production in the seven areas account for 59%
of national rice area and 56% of rice production, respectively.
The survey sites for wheat covered major producing areas
in China including Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Sichuan, Henan,
Hebei, Shandong, and Xinjiang. The total wheat area
and production in the eight producing areas account for
87% of national wheat area and 92% of wheat production,
respectively. For maize, there are eight producing areas
including Jiangsu, Hunan, Sichuan, Shandong, Jilin, Gansu,
Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia. The total maize area and
production in the eight locations account for 41% of national
maize area and 44% of maize production, respectively.
The farm-level data were collected by Chinese Academy
of Agricultural Sciences in collaboration with provincial
research institutes and local authorities. A stratified random
sampling technique was used to select the households.
Counties selected represented variation in geographic
features (such as location and remoteness) and climate
features. Villages were first selected on the basis of
proportionate area and households from those villages were
selected randomly.
2.2. Methods
The methods to estimate farm household technical
efficiency include parametric and nonparametric methods,
1
There are spring and winter wheat in China. The area and production of winter wheat account for 94% of national wheat area and
95% of national wheat production, respectively. In the study, wheat mainly refers to the winter wheat.
i.e., stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) introduced by Farrell
(1957) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) introduced by
Charnes et al. (1978). There are debates on which approach
is more appropriate for technical efficiency estimation. In
this study, we apply the SFA for our data set, which is a
one-step approach using the maximum likelihood method
to estimate the parameters of the production function
equation and the technical efficiency model. This may
be more appropriate than separately estimating these
two equations (i.e., estimate the production function first
to calculate the technical efficiency scores and then use
these scores to estimate the parameters of the efficiency
equation) because it is more reasonable to assume that
technical inefficiency is not independent of production
outcomes. The one-step approach is thus applied in this
study, i.e., a stochastic production frontier based on the
factors of production was estimated simultaneously with the
determinants of inefficiency using the maximum likelihood
estimation (Battese and Coelli 1995).
Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to
analyze the pattern of input use and the socioeconomic
characteristics of the farm households. To verify which model
specification fits the stochastic frontier best, a generalized
likelihood-ratio test is conducted where a Cobb-Douglas
production function (H0) is nested in the transcendental
logarithmic (TRANSLOG) production function (H1). Based
on the likelihood ratio test, where the test statistic is –79.56
with a P-value of 1.000, a Cobb-Douglas production function
is the appropriate model for hybrid rice production in 2016
and TRANSLOG production function is for the rest of
stochastic frontier. The empirical specification used in this
study is the Cobb-Douglas functional form:
n
lnYj =α +∑ β j ln X ij +Vj −Uj  (1)
i=1
where j index represents the jth observation, since one
parcel was selected from one household, the jth parcel is
also the jth household; Yj represents rice production yield
in tons per hectare on the jth parcel; α and βj are parameter
vectors to be estimated; Vj is purely random error term; Xi
is a vector of i production inputs (i.e., fertilizer, pesticide,
herbicide, and labor) and indicator variables (i.e., the
irrigation) for the jth farmer; Uj is a non-negative random
variable and named as inefficiency component to capture
inefficiency effects relative to the stochastic frontier by
truncating the normal distribution at zero.
While the technical inefficiency model is given as:
n
Uj =δ +∑δj Zij  (2)
i=1
 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481
where U j represents technical inefficiency of the jth
household to be estimated in the stochastic production
function; δj are parameters to be estimated; Zij is the ith
socio-economic determinant at household level affecting
inefficiency on jth farm.
In the production function, zero values were also
observed in cases where farmers did not apply organic
fertilizer and pesticides. As proposed by Battese and Broca
(1997), the following methodology was applied to account
for the zero values:
lnYj=β0+(α0–β0)D2j+β1lnX1j+β2lnX2j*+Vj i=1, 2, ..., n (3)
where D2j=1, if X2j=0; D2j=0, if X2j>0; X2j*=Max (X2j, D2j).
The model in eq. (3) implies that X2j*=X2j is true for X2j>0
but if X2j=0, then X2j*=1. This methodology allows the
homogeneity of error variances between farmers who did
and did not apply organic fertilizer and pesticides under
the assumption that the elasticities of output with respect
to inputs of production were the same across farmers.
Additional dummy variables were also included in the
production function to control for the type of ecosystem and
farm ownership.
2.3. Variables and specification
Production inputs include seeds, organic and chemical
fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and labor. The unit of
measurement used in chemical fertilizer input is kg ha–1
while pesticides and herbicides which are in value of CNY
ha–1. Not all farmers adopt organic fertilizer. For those
who applied organic fertilizer, the kinds of organic fertilizer
(such as liquid, solid, waste, and so on) and amounts varied
greatly across crops and regions. The dummy variable for
organic fertilizer input instead of the amount of usage was
introduced in the production function. Farmers used different
types of pesticides and herbicides which are either in liquid
or powder form. Since this variation does not provide a
standard unit of measurement, using cost ha–1 would be a
viable alternative to represent usage. In addition, the data
are cross-sectional which makes price of the chemicals a
constant factor. In both inbred and hybrid rice production,
labor inputs were measured in cost ha–1. The labor and
mechanical inputs were not able to be split in the survey
and measured in cost ha–1 as well.
In this study, the household-specific factors in the
inefficiency model include gender, age and education of
household head, and household size or labor size. The
effect of age on efficiency is expected to be positive since
older respondents tend to have more farming experience
(Chen et al. 2009; Tang et al. 2015). Farmers’ education
is expected to affect technical efficiency positively (Chen
et al. 2009). Farm households that produce grains tend to
satisfy the family members’ consumption requirement and
473
income. Hence, we expect that households with bigger
farm size tend to have lower technical inefficiency. The
effect of farm size is expected to be positive. Dummy
variables for cropping pattern were used to be the proxy
to show the land use preference of farmers. Irrigation
is important for rice farming and the dummy variable of
traditional irrigation method was used. We hypothesize
that farmers with traditional irrigation method will negatively
affect technical efficiency.
The specification for the Cobb-Douglas production
function is as follows:
lnYj=α0+β1lnFertj+β2lnChemj+β3lnSeedj+β4lnLaborj+
β5D_pesticidej+β6D_provinces+Vj–Uj (4)
The specification of TRANSLOG functional form is:
lnYj=α0+β1lnFertj+β2lnChemj+β3lnSeedj+β4lnLaborj
+β5lnFertjlnChemj+β6lnFertjlnSeedj
+β7lnFertjlnLaborj+β8lnChemjlnSeedj
+β9lnChemjlnLaborj+β10lnSeedjlnLaborj
+ β11(lnFertj)2+ β12(lnChemj)2+ β13(lnSeedj)2
+ β14(lnLaborj)2+β15D_pesticidej
+β16D_provinces+Vj–Uj (5)
And,
Uj=δ0+δ1D_genderj+δ2agej+δ3hsizej+δ4hlaborj
+δ5D_orgfertj+δ6D_FIj+δ7D_MTj+δ8D_Mj
+δ9D_educj+δ10D_DCERj+δ11D_DCLRj
+δ12Areaj+Wj  (6)
Following the previous literature, the common agricultural
inputs, i.e., seed, organic and chemical fertilizer, pesticides
input, and labor were defined in the function (for instance,
Haji 2006; Yao and Shively 2007; Takahashi and Otsuka
2009). In addition, the variables in eq. (6) have been widely
used in the study on agriculture production in developing
countries (Haji 2006).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Demographic and farm characteristics of cereal
crop farming across regions
The majorities of the household head are males for both
inbred and hybrid rice production. For the inbred rice
production, the average age of household head is nearly in
their 50s with an average household size of four persons.
The age of household head in the less developed areas of
Heilongjiang and Guangxi is younger than that in developed
areas. The household size ranges from three to five persons
while the number of agricultural labors is similar across
regions (Table 1). Compared to the inbred rice production,
age of household head in hybrid rice production is older and
on average it is older than 55-year-old with lower education
level. There is no significant difference across provinces
474 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481

in terms of the demographic characteristics in hybrid rice
production.
For the wheat farming, similar with the household growing
rice, most of the household heads are males with an average
age of 51-year-old. Their education level is at the level of
high school and below. The average household size is four
persons with two labors.
Most household heads in the areas for maize production
are males, except in Liaoning. The percentage of female
head is 32% in Liaoning Province and it is much higher
than that in other provinces. The average age of the maize
farmers was 53-year-old. Farmers in Inner Mongolia and
Jilin are relatively younger, with an average age of 48 years
old. The average household size in maize farming is similar
with that in rice and wheat farming, being four persons with
two labors in one household. Basically there is not much
difference among different locations in terms of demographic
characteristics.
3.2. Variation of cereal crop yield associated with
cropping pattern
Both single rice cropping pattern and double rice cropping
pattern were implemented by the farmers while most of
them grew single rice (Table 1). Rice pattern in China has
changed to single rice due to lack of labors which is affected
by the increasing non-farm opportunities and income in the
context of urbanization (Chen et al. 2013). Heilongjiang
is an exception as it is used to be the area for single rice
cropping pattern and with inbred rice production, so 100%
of rice farmers adopt both inbred rice variety associated with
single rice pattern. In most cases, the situation is a kind of
mixed adoption of cropping pattern depending on the type
of rice variety being grown. The cropping pattern varies
across different provinces, but it is quite uniform within the
same producing area.
The yield of hybrid rice is significantly higher than that
of inbred rice, which still indicates the yield advantage of
hybrid rice production, but yield gap between hybrid and
inbred rice is less than 4% on average. The average yield
of hybrid rice is 7.94 t ha–1 ranging from 9.58 to 5.89 t ha–1
in the survey areas. Similarly, the average yield of inbred
rice is 7.64 t ha–1 with significant variation across different
regions. It ranges from 5.43 t ha–1 in Guangdong Province to
8.26 t ha–1 in Zhejiang Province and the difference accounts
for over 50% of the yield level in Guangdong Province.
In 2016, the average wheat yield was 6.84 t ha–1, while the
highest yield was 8.0 t ha–1 in Shandong Province and the

Table 1 Statistics of demographic characteristics and inbred rice production in 2016

Variable Inbred rice Hybrid rice Wheat Maize
Household characteristics 0.91
Gender of head (1=male; 0=female) 0.86 0.87 51.14 0.90
Age of household head (years) 48.65 55.73 1.88 53.24
Education of Head (1=primary school and below; 2=middle 2.04 1.66 4.36 1.73
school; 3=high school and above)
Household size (persons) 4.56 4.94 2.34 4.42
Household labor (persons) 2.13 2.04 – 2.27
Cropping pattern
Percentage of single rice cropping pattern (%) 76 80 – –
Percentage of double rice (early rice) cropping pattern (%) 12 11 – –
Percentage of double rice (late rice) cropping pattern (%) 12 9 – –
Technology adoption and input–output
Organic fertilizer adoption (1=yes; 0=no) 0.04 0.03 1.00 1.00
Broad irrigation (1=yes; 0=no) 0.48 0.42 – –
Mechanical transplanting (1=yes; 0=no) 0.68 0.09 – –
Monoculture (1=yes; 0=no) – – 0.73 0.80
Yield (kg ha–1) 7 642 7 937 6 835 8 128
Area (ha) 6.47 1.89 2.72 1.22
Chemical fertilizer (kg ha–1) 680 445 916 1 138
N element 136 83 175 157
P element 14 13 20 29
K element 30 22 15 26
Other chemical fertilizer 208 121 371 78
Pesticide (CNY ha–1) 1 049 1 409 618 628
Seed (CNY ha–1) 686 1 371 928 1 742
Labor (CNY ha–1) 8 777 6 687 2 950 7 471
No. of observation 615 603 3 279 2 038
–, no data.
 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481
lowest yield at 5.36 t ha–1 in Hubei Province. The difference
between the highest and lowest yield levels, 2.65 t ha–1, is
substantial and accounts for nearly 50% of the yield in Hubei
Province. The average wheat sown area per household in
the survey sites is 2.7 ha and varies greatly across locations.
Less than 10% of wheat farmers have more than 6.7 ha
growing wheat (i.e., 100 mu in Chinese). Most farmers are
still with small-scale wheat farming.
In 2016, the average maize area per household was
1.2  ha ranging from 0.3 to 4.4 ha per household. The
average maize yield was 8.13 t ha–1, of which Jilin Province
has the highest yield at 9.63 t ha–1 and this is more than
40% higher than that in Hunan Province.
3.3. Technology adoption and agricultural inputs of
cereal crops across locations
For the technology adoption, only less than 10% of farmers
adopt mechanical transplanting for rice seedlings and most
of them locate in Heilongjiang and Guangxi for inbred rice
production. The adoption of organic fertilizer is very limited
and it only accounts for 4% of rice farmers.
For the hybrid rice farming, in 2016, the average inputs of
fertilizer and pesticide were 445 kg ha–1 and 1 409 CNY ha–1,
respectively. The highest input level of fertilizer was nearly
twice more than the average level in Zhejiang Province.
It is also the place that farmers invest the highest cost of
pesticide for hybrid rice production than other locations.
The lowest input of fertilizer was 279 kg ha–1 in Sichuan
Province, less than 2/3 of the average level. And the lowest
input of pesticide was 848 CNY ha–1 in Jiangxi Province. The
average input of labors for the hybrid rice farming in 2016 is
6 687 CNY ha–1, while the lowest input was 3 488 CNY ha–1
in Hubei Province and the highest was 11 864 CNY ha–1 in
Guangdong Province. Agricultural inputs varied investigate
locations in terms of either quantity or value measurement.
For the wheat farming, all farmers in the survey applied
organic fertilizer and over 70% of them with monoculture.
In terms of the input, both the quantity of fertilizer and
pesticide cost are with significant differences across
locations. Chemical fertilizer used in the wheat farming
includes nitrogen, phosphate and compound fertilizer.
Chemical fertilizer used by farmers in Jiangsu Province
exceeds nearly 80% of national average level and is more
than three times than that in Anhui Province. Farmers in
Anhui Province with the largest wheat sown area had the
lowest chemical fertilizer input, which is 443 kg ha–1, less
than the half of the average level. Similar with the fertilizer
input, pesticide input across locations varied greatly. The
average pesticide input was 618 CNY ha–1, while the highest
was 908 CNY ha–1 in Sichuan Province and the lowest was
411 CNY ha–1 in Hebei Province.
475
For maize farming, yield level is not consistent with the
agriculture input, i.e., farmers produce high yield of maize
are not always with high inputs. The average nitrogen
fertilizer of maize production was 157 kg ha–1, ranging from
289 kg ha–1 in Jiangsu Province to 112 kg ha–1 in Hunan
Province. For the phosphate and potassium fertilizer, the
average inputs were 29 and 26 kg ha–1, respectively. Gansu
Province had the highest phosphate fertilizer input, with an
average level of 83 kg ha–1 and Jiangsu Province has the
highest potassium fertilizer input of 63 kg ha–1. Pesticide
input in Liaoning Province was at the highest level, which
is 3 717 CNY ha–1, exceeding the lowest level of pesticide
input in Gansu Province. The pesticide input in Liaoning
Province was five times higher than that of national average
level. In addition, the seed input in Liaoning Province was
14 562 CNY ha–1, which was also at the highest level. The
labor input also varied significantly across provinces, which
was affected by the amount and price of labor input as well
as mechanical input cost.
3.4. Distribution and variation of technical efficiency
across locations
The average technical efficiencies of inbred rice, hybrid
rice, wheat, and maize were 0.91, 0.89, 0.84, and 0.77,
respectively (Table 2). Our estimation of technical efficiency
scores for rice, wheat and maize farmers is in line with Tian
and Wan (2000), with lower level of technical efficiency.
The distribution of technical efficiency of food crops varied
across locations.
A total of 80% of yield potential was taken as the ceiling
yield that can be achieved by farmers (Lobell et al. 2009;
Deng et al. 2019). Taking 80% as the threshold level
of measurement, inbred rice farmers could be called as
efficient in general because over 89% of farmers’ efficiency
is higher than 0.8. The average level of technical efficiency
of inbred rice farmers from Heilongjiang Province was the
highest level of 0.93, while that from Guangdong Province
being the lowest with the level of 0.76. As shown in the
Fig. 1, the technical efficiency of inbred rice production in
Guangdong Province is relatively dispersed. In contrast,
the variation of individual farmers’ practice in Guangxi,
Zhejiang and Heilongjiang is much less. Although inbred
rice farmers mostly achieved 80% of the maximum yield
given the current agriculture input, it is still possible to find
the areas with potential (Neumann et al. 2010; Wei et al.
2015). Considering its variation of technical efficiency,
Guangdong Province is the area with more potential for
yield improvement to reduce the yield gap comparing to
other locations.
The average level of technical efficiency of hybrid rice
farmers is 0.89, with Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces having
476 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481

Table 2 Distribution of yield and technical efficiency of cereal crops across different locations
Inbred rice Hybrid rice Wheat Maize
Location Yield Technical Yield Technical Yield Technical Yield Technical
(t ha–1) efficiency (t ha–1) efficiency (t ha–1) efficiency (t ha–1) efficiency
Zhejiang 8.26 0.93 9.58 0.94 – – – –
Guangdong 5.43 0.76 5.89 0.89 – – – –
Jiangsu – – – – 6.63 0.78 7.80 0.81
Liaoning – – – – – – 9.45 0.76
Shandong – – – – 8.00 0.89 9.23 0.79
Inner Mongolia – – – – – – 9.34 0.70
Hubei – – 7.94 0.83 5.36 0.81 – –
Hunan – – 8.42 0.87 – – 6.70 0.85
Anhui – – – – 5.83 0.85 – –
Jiangxi – – 6.84 0.93 – – – –
Jilin – – – – – – 9.62 0.77
Heilongjiang 8.15 0.94 – – – – – –
Hebei – – – – 7.65 0.85 – –
Sichuan – – 8.34 0.93 6.01 0.83 7.26 0.72
Henan – – – – 6.82 0.85 – –
Xinjiang – – – – 7.26 0.90 – –
Guangxi 6.16 0.89 – – – – – –
Gansu – – – – – – 8.57 0.79
Total 7.59 0.91 7.89 0.89 6.83 0.84 8.13 0.77
–, no data.

the highest level of 0.94 and Hubei Province having the
lowest level of 0.84. Compared with inbred rice farmers,
the technical efficiency level of hybrid rice farmers is less
dispersed in the same location than that of inbred rice
farmers (Fig. 2). The distribution of technical efficiency of
farmers in Hubei and Hunan provinces is more dispersed,
and farmers’ technical efficiency within the province is with
variation.
On average, farmers’ technical efficiencies in both
wheat and maize production are lower than that in rice
farming and show significant variation across locations
(Fig.  2). The distribution of technical efficiency within
each province showed different trends. On average, the
technical efficiency of wheat farmers was 0.84 ranging from
0.90 in Xinjiang to 0.78 in Jiangsu. Although there was
not substantial difference across locations in terms of the
mean value of technical efficiency, the variation of technical
efficiency within the producing area was significant. The
distribution of technical efficiency in Anhui, Shandong and
Jiangsu is relatively scattered, and some farmers’ technical
efficiencies are even less than 0.4. The similar trend has
been showed in maize production. That is, the mean
value of technical efficiency at provincial level is similar
across locations, while the difference within the location is
significant across individual farmers.
In total, the average technical efficiencies of inbred rice,
hybrid rice and maize in 2016 all exceeded 0.80, which was
at a relatively high level, while the technical efficiency of
wheat production was lower than 0.80, indicating that there
is still a potential to improve the agricultural input efficiency
by improving farmers’ practice. In general, farmers at higher
level of cereal yields achieved higher technical efficiency
which means they were more efficient than others. Chen
et al. (2009) showed that farmers in Northeast and North
China were more efficient than those in east and southwest
regions which is inconsistent with our results, however,
their study did not identify the specific product. For each
individual crop, the spatial distribution of technical efficiency
varied across different geographic locations.
3.5. Comparison on the determinants of technical
efficiencies
According to the frontier production function result (Table 3),
the amount of chemical fertilizer input significantly affected
the yield of hybrid rice. But the effect of chemical fertilizer
input on the yield of inbred rice is negative. The fertilizer
input of inbred rice (680 kg ha–1) was much higher than that
of hybrid rice (445 kg ha–1). Overuse or the improper usage
of chemical fertilizer can negatively affect rice yield (Wang
et al. 2017). Pesticide input showed a significant negative
impact on the yield of the inbred rice, but the effect of
pesticide on the yield of wheat is positive. However, inbred
rice and wheat are grown in different geographic locations
associated with different management technologies,
farmers’ practice on pesticide input is different. Thus, the
effect of pesticide on farmers’ technical efficiency should be
related to the specific crop and technology adoption. Seed
 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481 477

Inbred rice in 2016 Hybrid rice in 2016

Zhejiang Guangdong Zhejiang Guangdong Hubei
80 80 80
15 15
60 60 60

Density

Density

Density
Density

Density
10 10
40 40 40
5 5
20 20 20
0 0 0 0 0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency

Heilongjiang Guangxi Hunan Jiangxi Sichuan

80 80 80
15 15
60 60 60

Density

Density

Density
Density

Density

10 10
40 40 40
5 5
20 20 20
0 0 0 0 0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency

Wheat in 2016 Maize in 2016

Jiangsu Shandong Hubei Jiangsu Liaoning Shandong

15 15 15 8 8 8
6 6 6
Density

Density

Density
Density

Density

Density

10 10 10
4 4 4
5 5 5
2 2 2
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency

Anhui Hebei Sichuan Inner Mongolia Hunan Jilin

15 15 15 8 8 8
6 6 6
Density

Density

Density
Density

Density

Density

10 10 10
4 4 4
5 5 5
2 2 2
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency

Henan Xinjiang Sichuan Gansu

15 15 8 8
6 6
Density

Density
Density

Density

10 10
4 4
5 5
2 2
0 0 0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency Technical efficiency

Fig. 1 Distribution of technical efficiency of cereal production across the locations.

input significantly affected the yields of hybrid rice and wheat, level than male farmers. Inbred rice farmers with a high
and 1% increase in seed input would increase the yields of education level or above have a lower inefficiency than
the hybrid rice and wheat at 0.03 and 0.52%, respectively. that of farmers with a primary education level or below. It
Based on the technical efficiency model, the adoption of is different from Pede et al. (2018), but consistent with Yao
irrigation technology will significantly reduce the technical and Shively (2007) that showed farmers with higher formal
efficiency of inbred rice farmers. In contrast, it is not education tended to engage in non-farm activities and were
consistent for hybrid rice production. Inbred rice and hybrid less efficient in rice production.
rice are two different technologies and traditional irrigation Older farmers were less efficient than young farmers
may influence the production differently. Maize and wheat in inbred rice and wheat farmers, which was inconsistent
farmers with monoculture pattern will have higher efficiency with the results of Chen et al. (2009), however, their study
than those with other cropping patterns like rotation or using the dummy variable to divide farmers into different age
intercropping. The kind of technology in agriculture would groups. Farmers were mostly in their 50-year-old and those
affect farmers’ technical efficiency (Zhu et al. 2016; Tavva growing inbred rice in Guangdong Province were nearly
et al. 2017). 60-year-old on average. In the context of urbanization and
In addition, female farmers engaged in both maize mechanization, older farmers may have physical limitations
and wheat production have significantly lower efficiency that hinder productivity improvements and access to modern
478 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481

Inbred rice in 2016 Hybrid rice in 2016

15 10

8
10
6
Density

Density
4
5
2

0 0
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Technical efficiency Technical efficiency

Wheat in 2016 Maize in 2016

10 10

8 8

6 6
Density

Density

4 4

2 2

0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Technical efficiency Technical efficiency

Fig. 2 Distribution of technical efficiency of cereal production by crops.

agricultural technology. Household labors significantly
contribute to farmers’ technical efficiency. This is in line
with Yao and Shively (2007) that farmers are more technical
efficiency with more family labors helping in rice production.
Farm size affected farmers’ technical efficiency differently
in rice, wheat and maize production. The results in previous
studies were mixed as well. For instance, Zhang et al.
(2016) showed that farmers with bigger farm size were not
more efficient to achieve the economies of scale of farm
production, but it was inconsistent with others. Our results
indicated that the effect of farm size need to be investigated
further for the specific cereal crops production.
is true, an ordinary least square (OLS) regression model
combining production frontier and inefficiency components
will be appropriate to conduct the analysis. However, the
test statistics show that the hypothesis is rejected; hence,
the parameters of the inefficiency model should have
random components (i.e., it is stochastic). Third, we test
the hypothesis that the selected inefficiency variables have
no significant effect on technical inefficiency. In this case,
the inefficiency variables should be replaced in the technical
inefficiency model. This hypothesis is also rejected based
on test statistics. This means that the explanatory variables
significantly affect the technical inefficiency model.

3.6. Hypothesis test 4. Conclusion

To further validate the result of the frontier regression, tests
of hypotheses were conducted. First, the test of hypothesis
that technical inefficiency is not present in the model. Based
on the test statistics in Table  4, the null hypothesis, i.e.,
technical inefficiency not present in the model is rejected. In
other words, the test proves statistically that the production
frontier model should have an inefficiency component.
Second, the test of hypothesis that observed parameters
of the inefficiency model has no random component. If this
Our results showed the Chinese farmers in cereal production
were efficient and farmers’ technical efficiency was varied
across locations. Given the current inputs in the survey,
the efficiency levels of most regions are nearly and over
90% is high and very close to the ceiling of best yield level.
When farmer’s yield close to the potential threshold given
the certain socio-economic and ecological environment,
the overall technology improvement or new agriculture
technology including new varieties associated with
 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481 479

Table 3 Estimation results of production function and efficiency function in stochastic frontier analysis (SFA)
Inbred rice Hybrid rice Wheat Maize
Variables
Estimate SE Estimate SE Estimate SE Estimate SE
Frontier production function
Fertilizer (log) –0.481** 0.212 0.785* 0.43 –0.155* 0.093 0.314*** 0.078
Pesticide (log) –0.571*** 0.209 –0.330 0.273 0.473*** 0.104 –0.031 0.101
Seed (log) 0.267* 0.152 0.170 0.300 0.519*** 0.106 0.017 0.113
Labor (log) 0.526* 0.296 0.514 0.386
Other input (log) 0.492*** 0.073 0.386*** 0.094
Dummy for pesticide –0.027 0.026 –0.017 0.020
Dummy for organic fertilizer 0.079*** 0.029 –0.049 0.045 0.149 0.114
Province dummies Yes Yes Yes Yes
Constant 8.803*** 1.849 5.995** 2.927 3.667*** 0.64 5.768*** 0.57
Efficiency function
Area (ha/household) –0.074*** 0.015 –0.074*** 0.027 –0.011** 0.004 0.120*** 0.018
Dummy for traditional irrigation 0.983*** 0.228 –1.064*** 0.250
Dummy for monoculture –1.055*** 0.07 –0.612*** 0.100
Dummy for early rice 0.584* 0.349 0.670* 0.380
Dummy for late rice 1.048*** 0.335 –0.118 0.442
Dummy for gender of household head 0.343 0.285 0.283 0.302 –0.351*** 0.104 –0.375*** 0.118
Age of household head 0.044*** 0.012 –0.018 0.011 0.010*** 0.003 –0.001 0.003
Education of household head
Dummy for middle school –0.387 0.262 –0.422* 0.229
Dummy for high school & above –1.482*** 0.4 –0.636* 0.382
Household size (persons) 0.005 0.017 –0.001 0.022
Household labor (persons) –0.341** 0.147 0.105 0.114
Constant –6.297*** 0.778 –2.881*** 0.725 –2.252*** 0.202 –1.370*** 0.259
LR for testing translog vs. C-D
50.10 45.96 79.85 53.22
production function
Log-likelihood value 352.41 512.60 1 360.65 241.02
Mean efficiency 0.91 0.89 0.84 0.77
No. of observation 604 597 2 831 1 856
***
, P<0.01; **, P<0.05; *, P<0.1.

Table 4 Results of hypothesis tests

Log-likelihood statistics
Null hypotheses1)　 Prob. Decision
Hybrid rice Inbred rice Wheat Maize
H0: γ=0 199.39 409.83 860.15 112.90 0.0000 H0: Rejected
H0: γ=σ1=σ2=σ3=σ4=…=σn=0 203.19 377.25 874.34 142.88 0.0000 H0: Rejected
H0: σ1=σ2=σ3=σ4=…=σn=0 352.41 512.60 1 360.65 241.02 0.0000 H0: Rejected
1)
H0, null hypothsis; γ and σ n are the coefficients in the models.

cultivation management is urgently needed in the main
production areas to change or improve the trajectory of
farmers’ practices.
Individual farmers’ technical efficiency ranged from 66 to
94%. It showed the potential to improve the yield through
fining tuning the management of farmers’ practices by
training and technical support in Guangdong Province for
inbred rice, Hubei and Hunan provinces for hybrid rice,
Jiangsu and Hubei provinces for wheat, and Inner Mongolia,
Sichuan and Jilin for maize. Many of the locations are not
in the developed areas, capital required for agricultural
development may be helpful to facilitate the improved
agricultural technology development and adoption.
The yield levels of the three major crops vary greatly from
place to place as well. Farmers being investigated in the
survey with higher yield level are also with better technical
efficiency. Farmers’ agricultural inputs, demographic
characteristics and technology adoption have different
effects on farmers’ crop production and efficiency. In the
survey, farmers for three crops are generally older and the
age of above 50-year-old with similar trend across locations.
Older farmers are less efficient than young generation.
It is challenging for the aged farmers to adopt the new
agricultural technology. The number of young farmers has
sharply been reduced in the grain production. Shortage
of labor supply associated with the increasing labor cost
480 ZHOU Wen-bin et al. Journal of Integrative Agriculture 2021, 20(2): 470–481
become the constraint of grain production development.
The technology to save labor is critical and needs to be
prioritized in the future research.
Currently, the Chinese agriculture is under transition in
the context of rapid industrialization and urbanization. While
non-farm employment has increased farmers’ income and
changed their income structure, it has also triggered fierce
competition for labor resources between farm and non-farm
activities. While in the long run, the availability of non-farm
opportunities may contribute to farmers’ yield improvement
and this would be helpful for the resources allocation
within the household, which helps in bridging the gap
between farming and non-farm activities. This may affect
the technology adopted and needed by Chinese farmers.
However, the historical record shows that such integration
takes a long time. An analysis using panel data with longer
time periods will produce more convincing results.
Acknowledgements
Financial support for this research was funded by the
grants from the National Key Research and Development
Program China (2016YFD0300100). We thank Dr. Hou
Peng (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences), Dr. Li
Congfeng (Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences),
Dr. Liu Peng (Shandong Agricultural University, China),
Dr. Lu Dalei (Yangzhou University, China), Dr. Lu Weiping
(Yangzhou University, China), Dr. Zhang Yinghua (China
Agricultural University), Dr. Wang Xiao (Nanjing Agricultural
University, China), Dr. Wang Danying (China National
Rice Research Institute), and Dr. Wang Shu (Shenyang
Agricultural University, China) for their efforts to organize
the household survey. We also thank Dr. Chen Chuanbo
(Renmin University of China) for his valuable discussion
and comments.
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