頁籤選單縮合
| 題 名 | 臺灣農業發展的經濟分析=An Analytical Review of Agricultural Development in Taiwan |
|---|---|
| 作 者 | 謝森中; 李登輝; | 書刊名 | 中華農學會報 |
| 卷 期 | 24 民47.12 |
| 頁 次 | 頁32-42 |
| 關鍵詞 | 臺灣; 農業發展; 經濟分析; |
| 語 文 | 中文(Chinese) |
| 英文摘要 | While Taiwan has been experiencing a rapid development of industry since its restoration, its economy today is still predominantly agricultural. With about 50 per cent of the total population in agriculture, agricultural output accounts on the average for about 30-33 per cent of the net national income. Agricultural activites provide major source of employment for the working population, and the exports of agricultural products contribute more than 90 per cent of total foreign exchange earnings. In addition to the provision of basic food for the population, agriculture provides a major source of raw material supply for the industries. Agricultural processing industries constitute the major part of industrial operation in Taiwan. All of these facts shows that agriculture constitutes the mainstay of Taiwan's economy. The development of agriculture in Taiwan can be roughly classified into five periods. From 1900 to 1920, agricultural development was at its initial stage. The import of Japanese capital and technique and the expansion of cultivated land were two major factors contributing to the expansion of agricultural output in the period. From 1920 to 1939, Taiwan's agriculture continued and expanded its scale of development under colonial system with important role played by Japanese capital and technicians, but more emphasis was made to increase in the unit yields of crops. During these two periods, Taiwan's economy was closely linked with the economy of Japan as a colony to supply food and raw materials for Japan and to import fertilizer and other industrial products from Japan. From 1939 to 1945, the whole economy of Taiwan was affected by World War II, and agriculture experienced a downward trend of both output and fertilizer use. After the restoration of Taiwan to the Republic of China in 1945, agricultural development was characterized by a recovery and rehabilitation stage. Agricultural output was recovered to the pre-was level in the years 1951 and 1952. It took about five to six years beginning 1946 to accomplish the full recovery of agriculture in Taiwan from the war damage. The major factors contributing to the agricultural recovery were (1) increased import and use of chemical fertilizer, (2) extensive rehabilitation and expansion of irrigation facilities, (3) introduction of improved and new technology in agricultural production, and (4) enforcement of land reform program to give incentive for the cultivators to increase production. Furthermore, the economic condition of Taiwan after the war was quite different from that in pre-war as the economic tie between Japan and Taiwan was cut off and Taiwan started to operate as an independent island economy. It had to tackle quite different market and price situations in exporting farm products and importing agricultural supplies. From 1952 and on, the island's agriculture has been undergoing a stage of further development of resources and technological potentials to meet the increased needs of population and industrialization of the island. It is reasonable to expect that the agriculturists and the economic planners in Taiwan will face greater challenge in the stage of further development for agriculture as output response to additional input in agriculture will decline and the technical feasibilities for output expasion will also become less promising as compared with the previous stages of development. Roughly speaking, it can be said that over a long period of time the annual growth rate of population in Taiwan increased by more than 0.5% in decade, or 0.5% in a year. This increasing trend of annual growth rate of population in the process of agricultural development in Taiwan seems not in line with the trend of population growth in the advanced countries during their process of economic development. As Taiwan is a small island, and its economy has been developed under special conditions, (colonial economy before World War II, and rehabilitation after the war), it may represent a special model in population growth. The possible factors contributing to the increaseing rate of population growth in Taiwan in the past 50 years might be: (1) colonial economic system, (2) lack of industrialization, (3) rapid improvement of rural health condition in recent years, and (4) influx of population from the mainland of China in the years of 1946 to 1950. One thing should be noted that the annual growth rate of agricultural output tends decline in the future, while the annual growth rate of population tends to maintain at or even increase to a high level if positive measures are not taken to check its growth. The opposite direction of the trends of population growth and agricultural development in Taiwan may present a series problem in our furture economic development. Up to the present time, the increase in agricultural output is still greater than the increase of population, and agricultural production is still in adequate supply to meet the requirements for domestic consumption and exports. In other words, demand and supply curves of agricultural products in Taiwan have shifted at the same direction to the right. Since the relative price of farm products to non-farm products remained approximately unchanged in the period under review, it can be assumed that the shifts of demand and supply curves were at about equal rates. As regards the shift of supply curve of farm products, we need to consider two factors affecting the expansion of agricultural outcut: (1) increase of input factors used in agricultural production, and (2) improvement and advancement of technology in agriculture. Among the input factors, cultivated land area was the most stable input with only slight change from 1935 to 1956. The expansion of crop area was quite significant in the period from 1945 to 1950 during the recovery stage of agricultural development. From 1950 to 1956, crop area increased only to a small extent reflecting also the limit for its further expansion. Agricultural workers also experienced an increase of about 40 per cent in twemty years. The average annual growth rate of agricultural workers was about 1.3 per cent, which is far below the annual growth rate of agricultural population at 2.5 per cent. In recent years, the total number of agricultural workers in Taiwan was comparatively stable indicating that with the restriction of land resource, agriculture will provide only limited additional opportunity for the employment of more working population in agricultural production and that underemployment represents one of the serious problems in agriculture in Taiwan. Development of industry and other lines of economic activities is necessary to facilitate the movement of working population out of agriculture to other sectors. Farm operation in Taiwan is characterized by intensive use of labor. However, with more intensive labor input in agriculture, underemployment becomes more serious than ever as indicated by the decreasing trend of working days per worker in agriculture. The supply of working capital in Taiwan agriculture indicates greater fiexibility than the supply of other inputs. It shows that working capital including fertilizer and feed inputs is the most important strategical factor influencing the expansion of agricultural output. Innovation in Taiwan agriculture is featured primarily by the increased use of fertilizer which requires relatively small capital outlay and permits application in variable quantities. As farmers in Taiwan are dominantly small operators generally handicapped by small acreage of land plot and shortage of capital, the characteristics of this innovation is of special significance to agricultural to development under Taiwan's condition. Fixed capital includes deprecfation on farm houses and farm implements, interest on working cattle, and fee paid for public irrigation service. Fixed capital input in 1956 was still about 37 per cent below the level in 1935-37 indicating the fact that mechanical innovation in agriculture represented by fixed capital input lagged comparatively behind the biologivcal innovation represented by working capital input in agricultural production in Taiwan. Observation on relative changes of resource inputs in agricultural production in Taiwan indicates the fact that with relatively constant supply of land area and significant increase of working capital agriculture the relative importance of land resource in agricultural production has gradually decreased in the period from 1935 to 1956. Although supply of land area has been supplemented by the expansion of crop areas, fertilizer and irrigation as the major factors of working capital and fixed capital have also substituted for land resource to a great extent in the expansion of agricultural output. In other words, the limitation of land resource of land resource supply has been relieved by increasing land productivity as a result of additional fertilizer and irrigation service inputs. Therefore, it can be said that the expansion of agricultural output in Taiwan was chiefly accomplished by the substitution of capital for land resource, i.e. to increase the capital/land ratio in agriculture for higher productivity of land. Two major factors contributed to the great advancement of land productivity in the period 1935-56: (1) expansion of crop area and (2) increase of crop yields. Since land resource is scarce and its expansion is also limited, intensive use of farm land through increased multiple cropping and increased non-land inputs is not only important to the farmers to increase their farm output and income, but is also necessary from the standpoint of national economy to maximize national agricultural products. While labor productivity per agricultural worker in 1956 showed no gain over the level in 1935, labor producivity per man-day input advanced by 4.50 per cent from 1935-37 to 1956. Capital productivity presented and up-and-down movement in this period, with an increase of about 10 per cent in 1956. After reviewing the changes of individual resource productivities, it can be concluded that the increase of aggregate resource productivity in the period 1935-56 was due principally to the rapid increase of land productivity per unit land area, as other resource productivities remained relatively constant through the period under review. In view of the fact that land productivity increased rapidly from 1935 to 1956 with no gain in labor productivity per agricultural worker, we need to ask the question what is the pattern of resource combination under such situation in agricultural production in Taiwan? Labor productivity is equal to the product of capital intensity, capital productivity and per capita land area of agricultural worker. The decrease of labor productivity in 1952-56 compared with 1935-39 was due mainly to the decrease of per capita land area of agricultural worker. As a consequence, labor productivity in Taiwan agriculture decreased through long period of time as a result of declining land-labor ratio and insufficient increase of capital investment as compared with the rapid increase of labor forces in agriculture. Therefore, increasing capital investment and shifting labor forces out of agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector are two necessary conditions for improving labor productivity in Taiwan agriculture. Furture development of agricultural productivity in Taiwan depends heavily upon the improvement of labor productivity in agriculture. |
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