Harvest Loss in China

Rice, Mechanization, and the Moral Hazard of Outsourcing

Xue Qu, Daizo Kojima, Laping Wu, Mitsuyoshi Ando (Autoren)

Buch | Hardcover

176 Seiten

2024 | 2025 ed.
Springer Nature (Verlag)
9789819791552 (ISBN)

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This open access book examines food security in China with a specific focus on rice harvesting. As the most populous agricultural developing country, China’s food security is closely related to the world’s food security. An urgent issue internationally, data show that every year, about one-third of food is lost and wasted before it even reaches the market, mainly in less developed countries. To this end, halving the amount of food loss and waste is one of the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2021, the Chinese government issued the Anti-Food Waste Law of the People’s Republic of China, placing a high priority on food loss reduction. Rice, one of the major staple foods, has also received a higher priority in government policy, as it has been deemed required to be “absolutely safe”. In China, rice farmers rely heavily on outsourcing services to complete harvesting, which has led to the rapid development of mechanical harvesting. This book shows that the essence of outsourcing services is a principal–agent relationship in which there is a potential moral hazard, which is considered detrimental to harvest losses. The book analyses the effect of the moral hazard in harvest outsourcing services on rice harvest losses from this principal–agent theoretical perspective. Using the latest nationwide farmer survey, it empirically demonstrates the moral hazard in agricultural outsourcing services and its negative impact on harvest losses, providing suggestions for food loss reduction in China and similar developing countries where agricultural outsourcing services are developing rapidly. Relevant to social science researchers working in areas of food security in connection with the SDGs, and to scholars studying development in China more generally, this is a timely contribution confronting possible means of food loss reduction, in the developing world particularly, in the East, and globally.

Dr. Xue Qu is Project Researcher, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, The University of Tokyo. Dr. Daizo Kojima is Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, The University of Tokyo. Dr. Laping Wu is Professor, College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University. Dr. Mitsuyoshi Ando is Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, The University of Tokyo.

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Literature Review.- Chapter 3. Data Collection and Descriptive Statistics.

Erscheinungsdatum	09.01.2025
Reihe/Serie	The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia
Zusatzinfo	6 Illustrations, color; 6 Illustrations, black and white; XVI, 176 p. 12 illus., 6 illus. in color.
Verlagsort	Singapore
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Ethik
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Spezielle Soziologien
	Technik ► Lebensmitteltechnologie
	Weitere Fachgebiete ► Land- / Forstwirtschaft / Fischerei
Schlagworte	Agricultural Economics and Ethics • China Food Production • food security • Harvest outsourcing • mechanical harvesting • Moral Hazard • open access • Rice Farming • Rice Yields in China • SDG2 • Sustainable Development Goals
ISBN-13	9789819791552 / 9789819791552
Zustand	Neuware