TY - JOUR
T1 - Aging of agricultural labor force and technical efficiency in tea production
T2 - Evidence from Meitan county, China
AU - Liu, Jian
AU - Zhang, Chao
AU - Hu, Ruifa
AU - Zhu, Xiaoke
AU - Cai, Jinyang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors.
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - While the aging of agricultural labor force and its impact on agricultural production have been attracting extensive attention, little is known about the relationship between aging of agricultural labor force and technical efficiency in tea production. Using the stochastic frontier analysis and cross-sectional survey data covering 241 tea-producing farmers in Meitan County in China, this study attempts to investigate the impact of aging of tea-producing farmers on technical efficiency in tea production in the mountainous areas of southwestern China. The results show that the average technical efficiency in tea production is 0.581, implying a great room for improving technical efficiency in tea production in Meitan County. While there might exist an inverted U-shaped relationship between farmers' age and technical efficiency, the aging of tea-producing farmers would exert negative impact on technical efficiency in tea production. In addition, rural-urban migration experience, number of household laborers, distance from home to village committee, and township location are also significantly related with technical efficiency. The findings in this study are proved to be robust. Hence, several policy implications for meeting the challenges from aging of agricultural labor force and improving technical efficiency in tea production in the mountainous areas of southwestern China are also discussed.
AB - While the aging of agricultural labor force and its impact on agricultural production have been attracting extensive attention, little is known about the relationship between aging of agricultural labor force and technical efficiency in tea production. Using the stochastic frontier analysis and cross-sectional survey data covering 241 tea-producing farmers in Meitan County in China, this study attempts to investigate the impact of aging of tea-producing farmers on technical efficiency in tea production in the mountainous areas of southwestern China. The results show that the average technical efficiency in tea production is 0.581, implying a great room for improving technical efficiency in tea production in Meitan County. While there might exist an inverted U-shaped relationship between farmers' age and technical efficiency, the aging of tea-producing farmers would exert negative impact on technical efficiency in tea production. In addition, rural-urban migration experience, number of household laborers, distance from home to village committee, and township location are also significantly related with technical efficiency. The findings in this study are proved to be robust. Hence, several policy implications for meeting the challenges from aging of agricultural labor force and improving technical efficiency in tea production in the mountainous areas of southwestern China are also discussed.
KW - Aging
KW - Agricultural labor force
KW - Stochastic frontier analysis
KW - Tea
KW - Technical efficiency
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075839347&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/su11226246
DO - 10.3390/su11226246
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85075839347
SN - 2071-1050
VL - 11
JO - Sustainability (Switzerland)
JF - Sustainability (Switzerland)
IS - 22
M1 - 6246
ER -
