Conventional Inputs and Sectoral Productivity Growth in Agriculture: Evidence from Rural China

Sustainable food production has become a subject of interest to policy makers in rural China in the quest to consolidate food security in the midst of an escalating population. Adopting Cobb-Douglas production function and employing cross-sectional data from 1990 to 2013, this paper measures the contribution of land, labor, fertilizer, agricultural machinery in addition with government investments to the growth of agricultural production. According to the results of the study, fertilizer application, labor and land contribute positively to total agricultural growth with elasticity of 1.48, 0.19 and 0.17 respectively from 1990 to 2013. A unit increase in price, investment in education and Research and Development also increase agricultural productivity growth by 0.4%, 0.74% and 0.03% respectively. An increase in fertilizer application contributes an average of 1.98%, 1.83%, 0.91% and 3.23% to crop, livestock, and fishery and forestry production respectively. A unit increase in farmlands also increases crop production by 0.8%, livestock production by 0.41% and fishery production by 0.23% during the entire period of study. In addition, fertilizer application, agricultural machinery and labor performed creditably on some selected farm products during the study period.