关键词: 棉花生产格局, 土地生产率, 劳动生产率, 资本产出率, 新疆

Abstract: Over the past 30 years, the cotton production in China has gradually concentrated in Xinjiang under market economy. This change in spatial pattern of cotton production has accelerated the expansion of cropland in Xinjiang and consolidated the regional function in agricultural production in China. Moreover, it has promoted the desertification in western China. Although much research work has been conducted on the expansion of cropland and cotton production in Xinjiang, it mainly focused on regional profit and effects on water resource and environment. The underlying cause of the concentration of cotton production is far from understanding. In market economy, any changes in spatial pattern in agricultural production are the results of regional competition and the regional competition is mainly determined by the production cost, consequently by efficiency and saving of land, capital, and labor. Therefore, a detailed exploration of regional difference in land productivity, labor productivity, and capital productivity in cotton production was conducted in this paper based on the cost and profit data collected by the price department of national development and reform commission. The results indicated that the land productivity for Xinjiang was higher than the national average but not the highest in 15 cotton-planting provinces of China. The cash capital productivity for Xinjiang was even below the national average. Only the labor productivity for Xinjiang was the highest in all cotton-planting provinces of China. These results imply that the regional disparity of labor productivity in cotton production is the underlying cause of the concentration of China's cotton production in Xinjiang under the market economy. From the conclusion, we can deduce that the concentration of China's cotton production in Xinjiang will continue and the environment will be worsening in the coming years, unless the central and local governments take some concrete measures. This conclusion also suggests that further verification researches should be done on changes in spatial pattern of other crop production in China.

Key words: spatial pattern of agricultural production, land productivity, labor productivity, capital productivity, Xinjiang