Abstract:
Agricultural production services are of great importance to ease the rising grain production cost pressures and achieve the sustainable development of agriculture. Taking rice industry as example, based on the household survey data from the fixed observation points of rice industry comprehensive experiment stations, and applying the stochastic frontier analysis method, this paper analyzed the impacts of agriculture production services on grain cost efficiency. Results indicate that: 1) there were significant differences about the development levels of agriculture services in different sections of rice industry: the levels of financing service, technical service, and machinery service are higher than the levels of input supply services and processing and sales services; 2) the average score of cost efficiency is still in low level, about 0.73, and the observed production cost is higher than the frontier cost due to cost inefficiency; and 3) rice production services such as financing service, technical service, machinery service and processing and sales service except the input supply services have significant positive impacts on cost efficiency, and the education level and planting experience also have significant positive impacts on the cost efficiency. Finally, in order to improve rice cost efficiency, this paper provides the following suggestions, including expanding the content of agricultural production services, improving their whole development level, giving full play of the role of pre-production and after-production services on cost efficiency promotion, and strengthening educational training or professional education for the farmers.