| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 應用經濟學系所 === 105 === In the light of expanding the scale of agricultural operation as well as addressing the structural issues like rural population aging, overly fragmented cultivation, and lack of competitiveness, Taiwan’s agricultural administrator implemented “Small Landlord and Big Tennant” program in 2009. Under the policy goal of “Scale Enlargement and Structural Adjustment”, in conjunction with cultivation adjustment, farmland revitalization, subsidy on farming transition (contractual farming) and set-aside, and encouragement of plantation of import substitute crops and crops with strong export potentials, this program aims at bringing about a structural change to the industry.
For years, in safeguarding the interests of farmers, numerous subsidy programs have been introduced, including price guarantee paddy procurement, agricultural machinery/facility subsidies, set-aside subsidy, farming transition (contractual farming) subsidy, and subsidy on agricultural uses of electricity and fuel. However, the effects of agricultural subsidies and diversified operation on operation performance have rarely been touched on by studies in this field. In consideration of that, this study will analyze the survey data on 2015 Big Tenant operation to explore how agricultural subsidies can affect diversification and operation performance of Big Tenants participants.
According to the data, the average diversification rate of policy guided Big Tenants was 29.9 percent. Among them, those in north, central, and south regions had a greater degree of diversification than those in east region. Farmers who cultivated paddy, special crops, and fruits and those who engaged in processing diversified less in their operation than those providing agricultural services. Engaging in agricultural processing, agricultural services, and agricultural machinery businesses and receiving transition and set-aside subsidies had significant positive effects on diversification. For Big Tenants, the agricultural income accounted for 31.8 percent of their total earning in average. In terms of operation performance, the data further indicates that those participants with college degree or above achieved better operation performance than that of those with only elementary education; compared against Big Tenants in east region, Big Tenants in north region fared worse and those in central region did better; paddy growing households had lower operation performance than those providing agricultural services, but households engaging in all other agricultural activities achieved better operation performance than agricultural service providers did. The planting area, diversification, income percentage from primary agricultural products and agricultural processed products, and the amount of subsidy received for agricultural machinery and farming transition (contractual farming) had positive effects on operation performance; on the other hand, rents paid for farmland, cropping index, number of part-time employees hired are shown to have negative effects on operation performance. In conclusion, these findings may serve as a basis for agricultural administrators to make an adjustment to the Big Tenant policy.
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