Integration of three industries in rural China and its provincial comparative analysis

Abstract: Modern agriculture can closely combine with the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas in China. The agriculture and industry can further be organically integrated as a whole, with the aid of industrial chain extension, function expansion, factor agglomeration, technology penetration, and organizational system innovation. The integration process has a great significance for rural revitalization, industrial prosperity, and farmers' income. In this study, an evaluation index system of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industry integration was constructed to measure the integration level of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries in 31 provinces and cities of China. Five dimensions were selected, including the industrial extension, function expansion, format enrichment, interest linkage, and urban-rural integration. The results showed that there were obvious characteristics of geographical gradient in the integration level of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries. It was featured by "east higher and west lower", where the integration level in the eastern part was higher than that in the central part, whereas, the central part was higher than that in the western part. There were great differences in the superiority dimension and potential dimension of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industry integration in different regions. Nevertheless, there was no absolute advantage dimension among the five dimensions. Different integration paths can be expected to effectively promote the integration level. In contribution rates, the dimensions of the eastern and western regions were widely dispersed, whereas, those of the central regions were relatively convergent. Furthermore, the regions with low integration were more sensitive to dimensional discretization, while the regions with high integration were more sensitive to dimensional convergence. The following policy implications were drawn: 1) the fusion index was rising nationwide to continuously promote the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas. The index can then be further used to track the convergence process of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in various regions of China, thereby promoting the integration level in the practice of rural revitalization. 2) It is urgent to improve the data collection and disclosure system of farmers, farming and countryside, while establishing the docking mechanism of department data on agricultural statistics. Data collection has become the most difficult task in measuring the integration of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries. 3) Location should be considered to prevent mechanical learning, when setting the goal of integration development. 4) All regions can be given full comparative advantages in promoting the integration of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries, because there was the natural heterogeneity of agricultural and rural areas in terms of spatial layout and resources. 5) Since the regions with a low level of integration are more sensitive to the dimension dispersion, the advantage dimension can be used to develop local characteristics in the initial stage of integration. The evaluation system can provide a solution to the cross-temporal comparison at inter city, county, and village levels. At the county level, it remains to be studied the effect of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industry integration on farmers' income and urban-rural economic structure. In addition, this study found the geographical gradient characteristics for the level of industrial integration at the provincial level. An in-depth analysis is necessary to clarify how the geographical factors are transmitted to the level of industrial integration. The geographical clustering effect can be expected in the future for the integration of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries.