Agricultural labor supply

Agricultural labor supply refers to the quantity and quality of the supply of agricultural labor carried out by the labor force in a certain period of time.

Basic Characteristics of Agricultural Labor Supply

The supply resources of agricultural labor come mainly from rural population resources. The status of population resources is mainly determined by the comprehensive status of society, economy, culture and historical tradition. The comprehensive situation of rural society is extremely different from that of urban society, prompting the supply of agricultural labor to have its own distinctive characteristics.

(1) The growth of agricultural labor supply has a strong economic driving force. Farmers are not only a living consumption unit, more importantly, a production unit. Farmers themselves are a reproduction of agricultural products and agricultural labor reproduction of independent operation of the social and economic unit. In a period of relatively stable or slow improvement in the level of science and technology, the farm household objectively needs a larger family size in order to maintain smooth production and obtain higher economic returns. This is because, under the traditional level of agricultural productivity, which is dominated by animal and manual labor, the economic return of a farm household created by a simple agricultural laborer may be even higher than that created by a complex agricultural laborer who has been educated and trained. In this way the expansion of reproduction in agriculture has to be realized mainly by means of episodic expansion of reproduction, and, this means of episodic expansion of reproduction relies on the number of more inputs of simple agricultural labor. Therefore, farmers are willing to increase the input of simple agricultural labor in the form of more sons and daughters to expand the production scale of farmers and obtain more economic returns. Therefore, the growth of agricultural labor supply has a strong driving force for economic development.

(2) The supply of agricultural labor force has strong elasticity. Agricultural labor supply resources mainly come from rural population resources, so the condition of rural population resources directly determines the condition of agricultural labor supply resources. In rural population resources, the boundary between labor force and non-labor force is not obvious, and the boundary between agricultural labor force and non-agricultural labor force is not strict. Firstly, among the rural population resources, the elderly over 60 years old and children under 16 years old cannot be classified as agricultural labor supply resources from the legal point of view and economic theory, but these two groups of people are mostly actively involved in agricultural labor both in the busy season and in the idle season, and the amount of labor supplied by these two groups of people is quite large. Secondly, among the farming households, those laborers who have been working outside for a long time in non-agricultural activities mostly come back to participate in the agricultural production activities of the farming households during the agricultural production busy season. Thirdly, because of the complexity of household work and the low level of socialization in farming households, every farming household needs a more permanent member who is engaged in household work. Therefore, from this point of view in the case of the same number of people in rural and urban communities, the ratio of labor force to population supplied to production in rural communities is relatively lower. Fourth, agricultural natural resources are more resilient to the endurance of agricultural labor, unlike in non-agricultural industries, where there are clear boundaries to the amount of capital and equipment absorbing labor. It is only because of the low direct and comparative returns to agricultural production that farmers do not invest all their time in agricultural production. Because of the above reasons, contribute to the agricultural labor supply has a great deal of scalability, or a great deal of elasticity.

(3) The total supply of agricultural labor is too large, while the effective supply is seriously insufficient. In traditional agriculture, which is dominated by animal power and hand tools, the production labor skills of agricultural laborers are mainly acquired from the practice of production labor. As a result, the general farming households do not pay enough attention to their children's school education, resulting in the overall low quality of agricultural labor supply resources. With the development of social economy, the excessive process of traditional agriculture to modern agriculture is accelerated, which requires agricultural laborers to have high scientific and cultural quality. However, the agricultural labor supply resources formed in the traditional agricultural production mode cannot adapt to the requirements of modern agriculture. In the process of transformation of traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, the social and economic phenomenon that the supply resources of agricultural labor force are too large and the effective supply is seriously insufficient occurs.

Determinants of Agricultural Labor Supply

The study of agricultural labor supply must study the determinants of agricultural labor supply and the status and role of each factor. The determinants of agricultural labor supply are mainly the rural population and its structure, the economic returns of agricultural labor, the quality of agricultural labor and so on.

(1) The size and composition of the rural population directly determine the size and composition of agricultural labor supply resources. Agricultural labor resources are basically composed of rural population resources, suitable for labor, rural population employment is also mainly in the agricultural sector. Therefore, the size of rural population resources is positively related to the size of agricultural labor supply resources. The age composition of the rural population has a more direct impact on the supply of agricultural labor force, and the distribution of the number of people in each age group of the rural population determines the trend of changes in the agricultural labor force.

(2) The economic efficiency of the agricultural sector determines the actual supply of agricultural labor. Labor is a means of livelihood, in order to make a living and improve the quality of life, people re-employment options, prefer those industries with high labor remuneration, rather than low labor remuneration industry sector employment. Therefore, the level of economic returns from labor in the agricultural sector determines the amount of agricultural labor supply.

(3) The quality of agricultural labor supply resources determines the amount of effective supply of agricultural labor. The practice of social and economic development has proved that the most basic and important social productive forces are people, the most basic and important socio-economic resources are labor resources, especially those who have a certain degree of cultural knowledge and science and technology. As the level of agricultural science and technology improves and spreads, and as the tools of agricultural production are upgraded, there is an urgent need to improve the quality of agricultural labor resources in order to meet the needs of the progress of modern agricultural science and technology and the development of the rural market economy. In reality, the economic, cultural, nutritional and educational standards in rural areas are lower than those in cities. Therefore, the quality of agricultural labor supply resources is low, and it is difficult to adapt to the requirements of the development of agricultural market economy. In the process of agricultural modernization, the rural population of the right age with low physical and cultural quality becomes the ineffective supply part of the agricultural labor supply resources. In addition, the transfer of agricultural labor force with high quality to non-agricultural industries has aggravated the shortage of effective supply of agricultural labor force. Therefore, in the era of rapid development of science and technology, the quality of agricultural labor supply resources, determines the amount of effective supply of agricultural labor.

(4) The amount of agricultural labor time supply is also an important factor in determining the status of agricultural labor supply. Agricultural labor time supply has two sources: one is to participate in the agricultural labor of each agricultural labor force daily agricultural labor time and the sum of the year's agricultural labor time; the second is the non-agricultural labor force in the busy season or other time to participate in agricultural labor time. The non-agricultural labor force includes the rural population who have not reached or exceeded the legal working age for agriculture, and also includes the rural population whose labor force in rural communities is mainly engaged in non-agricultural industries who participate in agricultural work during the busy season. The length of each working day of the agricultural labor force and the number of working days worked throughout the year are limited by agro-climate, the object of agricultural labor, the means of agricultural labor, the size of the agricultural labor supply, and national legal factors. Rural population of non-agricultural labor force age working in the agricultural sector is a manifestation of economic and cultural backwardness, but in poor and backward rural areas it is a necessity for survival and should be overcome in the process of rural economic development. The fact that the rural population, who are mainly engaged in non-agricultural work, participate in agricultural work during the busy season is a normal economic phenomenon in the process of the transformation of traditional to modern agriculture, rural urbanization and rural industrialization, and demonstrates the full utilization of the rural labour force and the strong momentum of economic development. With the deepening and development of agricultural modernization, urbanization and industrialization, this phenomenon will gradually disappear.

(Huang Chuling, Chen Ruiling, Cai Junping, etc.). Introduction to Agricultural Economic Management [M]. Guangzhou: South China Agricultural University Press, 1996: 187)