Determinants of Farmers’ Participation in Agricultural Structural Improvement Programs in Taiwan
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Yang, Ren-Hao
Abstract
Taiwan had an agricultural economy based on small peasant owners. Average cultivated area per household is about 1 ha. Therefore, economies of scale do not exist. Because of free trade, Taiwan agriculture has been facing major challenges. The government has implemented various policies to expand the scale of farm operations. Farmer involvement and the level of participation are widely viewed as a means of assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of various farm policies. The purpose of the study is to analyze the motives and influencing factors behind farmers'' actions. This research adopted the survey data to study whether the background of the farmers will affect their willingness-to-join structural improvement programs. In this study, we use Double Hurdle Model models to evaluate the factors that affect the farmer’s willingness to participate in the “small landlords, big tenant-farmers” program, Farmland Activation Plan, and the Agricultural Production and Marketing Specialized Zone measures. We also want to identify the factors affecting the degree of participation. The main purpose of this article is to understand factors affecting farmers'' decisions, and then enhance the effectiveness of policy. The results show that: (1) Age, gender, education level, land cultivated and total subsidy have significant positive effect on the adoption of “small landlords, big tenant-farmers” program. For participation degree of this policy, significant negative effect of age, gender, education level, and total revenue was observed. On the other hand, land cultivated has significant positive effects on the participation level of farmers. (2) Education level and total subsidy have significant positive effect on the adoption of Farm land Activation Plans, while land cultivated and total revenue has significant negative effect on that. For participation degree of this policy, significant positive effect of land cultivated and total revenue was observed. On the other hand, education level and total subsidy have significant negative effects on the participation level of farmers. (3) Age has significant negative effect on the adoption of the Agricultural Production and Marketing Specialized Zone measures, while total subsidy has significant positive effect on that. For participation degree of this policy, significant positive effect of age and land cultivated was observed. On the other hand, total subsidy has significant negative effects on the participation level of farmers.
Subjects
Structural Improvement Programs
Small land-owners and big land-rente Policy
Activation of Fallow Land Policy
Agricultural Production and Marketing Specialized Zone
Double Hurdle Model
SDGs
Type
thesis