Analysis of scale aquaculture production efficiency and analysis of its determinants

Abstract: Aquaculture park is an important form to promote scale breeding, which has an important significance for the transformation of aquaculture production style and the structural reform of supply side. In this paper, we use the stochastic frontier approach to analyze the production efficiency of aquaculture park with large scale in Zhejiang Province and its influencing factors. The stochastic frontier analysis method is widely used in the studies on agricultural production, yet the research using this method to calculate the technology efficiency of aquaculture park and analyze its influencing factors is relatively few. The technical efficiency of tilapia culture in Guangxi and the technical efficiency of freshwater aquaculture in China have been studied by some scholars. However, most of these studies are limited to a single aquatic species or based on macro data, lacking the analysis of the operating efficiency of the micro main varieties. This paper chooses Zhejiang Province as the research area because of its developed aquaculture industry, typical park construction, standard breeding and industrial organization system. Based on previous studies, we investigate the technical efficiency of aquatic breeding park and its influencing factors, which aimed to provide reference for the healthy development of the aquaculture industry in China. The data of empirical analysis come from the Agriculture Department and the Financial Department of Zhejiang Province, which cover 116 modern fishery parks. Cross-sectional data of both before and after the construction of modern fishery park are collected. Statistical indicators mainly include the scale and efficiency (breeding area, total production, total output value, labor productivity per capita), capital investments (provincial capital investment, capital investment of owners), facilities and equipment investments (reservoir, cold storage preservation, supporting house for production, oxygen increasing machine, feeding machine), technology application and brand building (standardized production area, sewage purification treatment, disease prevention and treatment, aquatic products brand), and business entities (main operating company, cooperatives and farmers). Case data are discarded if key information is missing. At last, a total of 108 valid cases are obtained. In order to eliminate the impact of price changes, the output value of fishery park, the capital investments and other variables are divided by production price index. The results show that: 1) Scale production exerts a positive effect on the aquaculture production efficiency which has increased from 0.673 to 0.712 since the completion of the park; 2) The standardization level effectively improves the breeding technology efficiency of the park, with a regression coefficient of -0.0003; 3) Disease control equipment improves the technical inefficiency (the regression coefficient is 0.0033), which means that excessive investment in infrastructure will lead to idle equipment and hinder the improvement of technical efficiency; 4) Brand building positively influences the breeding technology efficiency of the park, with a regression coefficient of -0.0033; 5) Leading enterprises have the greatest positive effect on the level of technical efficiency, followed by the organization of fishery cooperation and the large professional farmers, with the regression coefficients of technical inefficiency being -0.0017, 0.0015 and -0.0008 respectively. But the regression coefficient of ordinary farmers is 0.0012, which implies no significant effect on the efficiency of aquaculture technology. Some policy implications can be drawn from the results of the empirical study. Increasing production of aquaculture park inputs, investing infrastructure following principle of moderate scale, paying attention to brand building and innovating the mode of fishery organization and so on may enhance the technical efficiency of aquaculture park.