Agriculture in China is not only related to the food security of 654.38+0.3 billion people, but also will be the basic source of income increase and employment for more than 800 million farmers in a long time to come. However, the per capita cultivated land area in China is only 43% of the world average, and the contradiction between population increase, cultivated land reduction and shortage of cultivated land resources will exist for a long time. Moreover, China is one of the countries with the most shortage of water resources in the world, and the per capita water resources are only 1/4 of the world average. Such bad resource conditions will always restrict the development of agriculture in China, and fundamentally put China's agriculture at a disadvantage in international competition.

Research shows that the comparative advantages of China's grain, cotton, oilseeds and other bulk agricultural products have been declining since the mid-1990s, and they are basically not internationally competitive at present. For example, from the perspective of resource cost, China lost 0. 1 kg of wheat in 197, and further lost 0.39 yuan in 200 1 year, resulting in inefficient resource allocation. On the contrary, rice, livestock products and horticultural products have comparative advantages (tables 1 and 2 and 1 and 2).

The research further shows that the rising opportunity cost of domestic resources in agricultural products production since 1990s is the main reason for the decline of comparative advantage. Therefore, under the current agricultural resource endowment conditions in China, land-intensive products such as wheat, cotton and soybean obviously lack comparative advantages and do not have the basic conditions to participate in international commercial competition. On the contrary, China has abundant labor resources and low labor prices, so labor-intensive agricultural products, such as livestock products and horticultural products, have strong export potential (Guoqiang Cheng et al.,1999,2003).

According to the classical theory of international trade, if a country makes the best combination of production factors and intensively uses production factors with relatively rich resource endowments and relatively low prices on a certain commodity, it can have a lower comparative cost on this commodity and thus have an export advantage. Obviously, in theory, China's labor-intensive agricultural products, such as vegetables, fruits, aquatic products, meat products and processed foods, have comparative advantages in participating in international market division and competition.

Source: Guoqiang Cheng and Peng Tingjun, 2000.

Source: Guoqiang Cheng and Chen Junhong, 2003.

Second, the source of competitive advantage of China's agricultural exports

The export performance of agricultural products in China confirms this theoretical judgment. Table 3 shows that the export of labor-intensive agricultural products accounts for more than 76% of China's agricultural products, and shows a trend of further expansion, indicating that China's agricultural products export advantages are mainly concentrated in labor-intensive agricultural products.

Note: A. Labor-intensive agricultural products: aquatic products, livestock products, horticultural products and processed agricultural products.

B. Land-intensive agricultural products: cereals, oilseeds, cotton and other bulk agricultural products.

Source: According to the statistics of China Customs.

Table 3 also shows that the export of labor-intensive agricultural products in China has increased rapidly in the past five years. China's current economic growth stage and structural characteristics, China's export advantage characterized by labor-intensive agricultural products can be maintained for a long time.

First, there is a serious surplus of agricultural labor in China, which can provide low-cost and abundant labor supply for the production, processing and service of export agricultural products for a long period of time. The research shows that at present, the reasonable number of labor force needed by the agricultural sector in China is 65.438+0.96 billion, but in 2002, the employed population in the agricultural sector reached 325 million, and the surplus labor force was 65.438+0.29 billion. The Ministry of Agriculture predicts that by the end of the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the surplus agricultural labor force will further increase to 654.38+0.8 billion (Research Group of the Ministry of Agriculture, 2000).

Second, the urbanization of China lags behind the industrialization process. At present, the speed of urbanization is slow, the development of township enterprises is blocked, and the absorption capacity of urban and non-agricultural industries to rural labor force is limited. Even if the urbanization rate of China reaches 50% in the next 20 years (estimated by the annual increase of 1 percentage point and the total population of10.50 billion), the rural population will still be 750 million, and the rural labor force will be 375-450 million (estimated by the ratio of 50-60%). Considering the factors of technological progress, there will be at least 200 million rural surplus laborers. The transfer of rural labor force in China will go through a long process.

Third, the quality of rural labor force restricts the transfer of rural labor force. China's rural labor force has less years of education, and the proportion of junior high school education and below is as high as 89.04%, of which 9.56% are illiterate. The proportion of primary school education is 34.4% (Lan et al., 2002), which is difficult to meet the quality requirements of urban industry and commerce for the labor force, greatly restricting the transfer of rural labor force.

Therefore, for a long time to come, China's rural labor force has the characteristics of unlimited supply, which determines that China's agricultural products export must implement the strategy of giving full play to the comparative advantages of China's labor-intensive agricultural products. In addition, there are three favorable conditions for China to expand the export of superior agricultural products:

First, the advantages of diversity of agricultural resources. China, which straddles the subtropical zone and temperate zone, has diverse climatic conditions and natural resources, and can produce various agricultural products to meet the diversified food demand of the world market. China is giving full play to its regional comparative advantages, implementing the unbalanced development strategy of supporting the superior and strengthening the country, focusing on cultivating superior agricultural products and producing areas, and building a production base of superior agricultural products. For example, the main citrus producing areas in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, southwestern Jiangxi, southwestern Guangxi and southern Zhejiang, southern Fujian and eastern Guangdong have been or are being formed; Advantages of apple production in Bohai Bay and Northwest Loess Plateau: the dominant beef cattle areas in Central Plains and Northeast China; Central Plains, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Northwest and Southwest Mutton Sheep Dominant Areas; Northeast China, North China, Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai milk advantage areas; Dominant aquaculture areas for exporting aquatic products along the southeast coast and the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea. Most areas in China have comparative advantages in raising livestock and vegetables.

Second, the market location advantage. For example, Asia is the most important and potential market for world agricultural trade. In 2002, Asian markets imported 22.7% of the world's agricultural products (US$ 65.438+03.234 billion), among which Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan Province Province, Indonesia and Thailand ranked among the top 15 in the world. These areas are also the main export markets of China's agricultural products. Among them, China accounts for 10% of Japanese agricultural imports, South Korea accounts for 16%, Hong Kong accounts for 20%, and Indonesia accounts for 1 1%. China's agricultural exports to these areas are expanding. China has obvious geographical advantages in exporting agricultural products to Asian markets. Because of the short transportation distance and convenient transportation and marketing, it is suitable for the export of high-value agricultural products such as vegetables, fruits, aquatic products and meat, and is conducive to giving play to the comparative advantages of China's agricultural products.

Third, the big country effect and late-comer advantage. The China market, with its huge scale, rich growth potential and increasing openness, not only provides huge consumption demand and market space for China's agricultural products, but also promotes the gradual improvement of China's agricultural competitiveness and the acceleration of China's agricultural modernization process, and will also promote the development of world agricultural products trade and the adjustment of trade pattern. As a member of WTO, China is exerting an important influence on the international multilateral trading system, which is conducive to establishing a fair and reasonable global agricultural trade competition environment. At the same time, China is promoting economic integration and trade liberalization with ASEAN and other regions, which will further improve the export trade environment of agricultural products in China. As a big developing country, with the rapid economic growth, China is forming a "latecomer advantage" in technology, management and system, which will gradually narrow the gap between China's agricultural products and the world market, promote the improvement of export competitiveness and help expand the export of advantageous agricultural products.

Generally speaking, the export potential of China's agricultural products at this stage is mainly reflected in the low-cost competitive advantage of labor-intensive products. Relatively speaking, the United States, Canada, Australia and other agricultural products exporting countries have rich advantages in land resources and high-end competitive advantages in processing, technology, management and marketing. China and these countries have both cooperative division of labor, complementary advantages and obvious competition and conflict of interests in the international agricultural products market. However, if China does not adjust its current low-cost competitive strategy as soon as possible, once the comparative advantage structure of agricultural products weakens, it is likely to lose its position in the international division of labor.

Three, the main problems affecting China's expansion of agricultural exports.

Although in the long run, China's agricultural products export needs to gradually adjust its low-cost competitive advantage strategy, the near future is still a crucial period for China to play its comparative advantage in agriculture and expand its agricultural products export. However, there are still a series of problems that affect the export advantage of China's agricultural products, so that the resource advantage and comparative advantage of China's agricultural products cannot be effectively transformed into competitive advantage and export reality.

The complex international environment faced by China's agricultural products export, such as increasingly high technical barriers set by developed countries, anti-dumping and "special safeguard" investigations, may occur frequently in the next few years, and new trade barriers such as "intellectual property barriers" and "public opinion barriers" are also rising, which is not conducive to the low-cost competitive advantage of China's labor-intensive agricultural products and will become the main limiting factor for China's agricultural products export in the future.