Abstract

The transformation on the demand for Food plays an important role in the adjustment about prices of agricultural products and agricultural structure. The study, by utilizing the extended linear expenditure system, analyses the food consumption structure of rural residents in the Ganzhou of Zhangye city, determines the basic food consumption demand, the marginal propensity of consumption, the income elasticities of demand, the own-price and cross-price elasticities of local rural residents, which illustrates the influencing factors about food consumption of rural residents and forecasts the food consumption structure. The results show that the rural residents’ expenditure on household basic food consumption reaches about 7050.35 Yuan; the marginal propensities of consumption for fruit and vegetable are relatively high (respectively, 0.062 and 0.106), followed by meat (0.044); the demands for various food are increasing, as income increasing, the largest income elasticity of demand is corresponding to fruit (1.354), the lowest to cereal (0.310); the fruit and vegetables own the relatively high own- price elasticities (respectively -0.879 and -0.442), the cereal owns the lowest one (-0.184). The price increase of cereal will greatly affect demand for other products; the consumption for meat is decreasing whereas for cereal is increasing with the rising size of rural households; As the improvement of household education level, it will lead to increased consumption of fruits (E = 0.297); the amount of cereal expenditures is continually growing nevertheless the share is declining with the increase of household income in 2012-2020. Therefore, making sure the stability of cereal output the government should encourage the cultivation of Economic crops and guide the development of stockbreeding. In order to attain the balance between supply and demand, it is important to adjust rationally the prices of fruits and vegetables on the basis of the stable price with cereal.

Keywords:

Extended linear expenditure system, household food consumption, income elasticities of demand, the marginal propensity of consumption,

References

1. Allan, J.A., 2003. Virtual water the water, food, trade nexus, useful concept or misleading metaphor? Water Int., 28(1): 4-10.
   CrossRef    
2. Allen, R.G., L.S. Pereira, D. Raes and M. Smith, 1998. Crop Evapotranspiration-guidelines for Computing Crop Water Requirements. FAO, Rome.
   
3. Chapagain, A.K. and A.Y. Hoekstra, 2003. Virtual water trade: A quantification of virtual water flows between nations in relation to international trade of livestock and livestock products. In: Hoekstra, A.Y. (Ed.), Proceeding of the International Expert Meeting on Virtual Water Trade, Value of Water Research Report Series # 12.
   PMid:15024775    
4. Chapagain, A.K. and A.Y. Hoekstra, 2004. Water footprints of nations. Value of Water Research Report Series No. 16, UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands.
   
5. Chapagain, A.K. and A.Y. Hoekstra, 2007. Water footprints of nations: Water use by people as a function of their consumption pattern. Water Resour. Manag., 21: 35-48.
   
6. Haoran, S., D. Wen and Z. Ling, 2013. Study on the dynamic pricing revenue distribution model of fresh agricultural products supply chain. Adv. J. Food Sci. Technol., 5(12): 1660-1665.
   
7. Ulanowicz, R.E., 1997. Ecology: The Ascendant Perspective. Columbia University Press, New York.
   
8. Warner, J., 2003. Virtual water-virtual benefits? Scarcity, distribution, security and conflict reconsidered. In: Hoekstra, A.Y. (Ed.), Proceeding of the International Expert Meeting on Virtual Water Trade, Value of Water Research Report Series # 12.
   
9. Wichelns, D., 2001. The role of 'virtual water' in efforts to achieve food security and other national goals, with an example from Egypt. Agr. Water Manage., 49(2): 131-151.
   CrossRef    
10. Zhongmin, X., C. Guodong, C. Dongjin and H.T. Paul, 2002. Economic diversity, development capacity and sustainable development of China. Ecol. Econ., 40(3): 369-378.
    CrossRef    

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.