Storage losses, market development and household maize-selling decisions in China

Yi Luo, Dong Huang, Yan Han and Laping Wu

China Agricultural Economic Review, 2022, vol. 15, issue 1, 78-94

Abstract: Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impacts of storage losses and market development on the maize-selling behaviours of rural households in China. Design/methodology/approach - Based on the survey data of 543 households from nine major maize production provinces in China, the authors introduce storage losses to a household's maize-selling decision-making model and use fractional logit model and ordered probit model to empirically analyse the impact of maize storage losses and market development on household maize-selling decisions in China. To overcome potential endogeneity problems, the authors select the weather at drying (whether bad weather occurs during the drying process) and harvest loss as instrumental variables and re-estimate the model. Findings - The results show that increased storage losses prompt farmers to increase the proportion of maize sold within three months after harvest and sell maize in advance. Meanwhile, the degree of market development has a significant impact on farmers' maize-selling decisions. Other factors, such as the maize output, non-agricultural employment and awareness of loss control, also affect farmers' maize-selling behaviours. Research limitations/implications - The government should promote advanced storage facilities, reduce household storage losses, decrease the phenomenon of centralised sales after harvest and help farmers freely choose the suitable time for sales. The government also needs to strengthen market information releases and publicity, reduce transaction costs and help farmers make reasonable sales decisions. Originality/value - The authors introduce storage losses as a separate variable in a farmer's grain-selling decision model to empirically analyse the impact of storage losses on farmers' grain-selling behaviours. Moreover, the authors analyse the impact of market development on household grain-selling behaviours in China. These findings can help avoid oversupply in the market during the harvest season and alleviate the pressure on the market from the supply and demand imbalance. These results are also beneficial for farmers waiting for a higher price and increasing their income.

Keywords: Storage loss; Market development; Household selling decision; Maize; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:caerpp:caer-10-2021-0201

DOI: 10.1108/CAER-10-2021-0201

Access Statistics for this article

China Agricultural Economic Review is currently edited by Dr Fu Qin, Dr Jikun Huang, Dr Kevin Z Chen, Dr Weiming Tian, Prof Daniel Sumner, Prof Xian Xin and Prof Holly Wang

More articles in China Agricultural Economic Review from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().