Configuration analysis of the impact of contractual arrangements on the production technology efficiency of grain full-process trusteeship organizations

Against the backdrop of increasingly tightening food security constraints and the accelerated development of agricultural production trusteeship towards full-process and institutionalized operations, how to improve the production technical efficiency of grain full-process trusteeship organizations through optimized contractual arrangements has become a crucial issue for the high-quality development of agricultural socialized services; addressing the partial loss of production technical efficiency in such organizations caused by inadequate contractual arrangements, this study utilizes survey data from 120 grain full-process trusteeship organizations in Heilongjiang Province, first employing the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) model to measure their production technical efficiency and subsequently applying the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) method to systematically explore the configurational paths of contractual arrangements that lead to high production technical efficiency. The research findings indicate that: 1）reasonable increases in agricultural input and agricultural machinery investment can significantly enhance the production technical efficiency of grain full-process trusteeship organizations, 2）compared with rural collective economic organizations, new agricultural business entities account for a higher proportion of those achieving high production technical efficiency, 3）both high and low production technical efficiency result from the synergistic effect of multi-dimensional contractual arrangements.specifically, the contractual configurations for high production technical efficiency can be categorized into five types: weak capital pressure-insurance synergy type, risk protection type, dual-dimension protection of income and risk type, full production decision-making power type, and interest-binding type, while low production technical efficiency is mainly manifested in two types: the "perfect trap" type caused by key decision-making errors and the high operational pressure type resulting from excessive income commitments. Based on the research conclusions, countermeasures and suggestions are put forward from three aspects: giving full play to the role of agricultural machinery and materials in promoting the improvement of grain production technical efficiency, releasing the synergistic effect of multi-dimensional contractual arrangements in full-process trusteeship on promoting grain production, and strengthening the role of agricultural insurance in risk prevention and collaborative protection in full-process trusteeship.