As a typical industry of sustainable agriculture, edible mushroom industry in China has experienced rather rapid growth in the past few years. Meanwhile, the industrial structure of edible mushroom industry in China has underg-one new changes. One of the most notable changes is that industrial edible mushroom cultivation has been growing at a relatively fast pace. However, according to annual output data of the past three years, farmers who engage in small scale household production of edible mushrooms remain to be the subject of edible mushroom industryin China. This paper an-alyzes competitive advantages, disadvantages and survival strategies of small scale farmers, using the method of field sur-vey and comparative observation. First of all, it is identified that, in comparison with industrial edible mushroom cultiva-tion enterprises, the advantages of small scale farmers arelower cost of production and higher flexibility in the process of production. Cost of production mainly refers to the cost of fixed assets, labor, land,supervision and motivation, and in-ternal organizing. Flexibility in the process of production is divided into three facets:flexibility in entering and exiting the industry (i. e. pursuing and ceasing production), adjusting the scale of production, and switching specific types of products. Second, disadvantages of small scale farmers are obvious, such as weak bargaining power, outdated producing technology and unregulated operations, high external transaction cost, relatively limited sales channels, along with low capacity of risk-resistance. Further, it is pointed out that, in order to promote self-survivability, small scale farmers have employed the following survival strategies:competitive differentiation strategy, cooperation strategy, and product di-versification strategy. Finally, based on above analyses, suggestions onhow to strengthen the survivability of small scale farmers are proposed, focusing on further lowering cost of production and optimizing cooperative modes for small scale farmers. It is argued that, by reusing mushroom growing logs that are disposed of by industrial edible mushroom cultiva-tion enterprises, as well as recycling discarded mushroom growing logs that are infected by virus to cultivate certain types of mushrooms;even lower cost of production can be obtained by small scale farmers. Moreover, it is suggested that coop-eration mode of "Farmers + Bargaining Cooperatives+ Enterprises" should be advocated in areas where the develop-ment of cooperatives is relatively slow, and the cooperation mode of "Farmers + Cooperatives + Supermarkets" be a-dopted in areas where the development of cooperatives is more advanced.%作为农业循环经济的代表性产业,中国食用菌产业近年来发展迅速,产业结构出现了新变化,工厂化大规模集中生产方式发展较快.但近三年的产量数据表明,我国食用菌产业的生产主体仍是以家庭为生产单位的种植户.通过实地调研与对比观察法,文章分析了山东省食用菌种植户的相对优势、自身缺陷及生存战略,并提出了对策建议.文章首先指出,食用菌种植户的竞争优势在于低生产成本与高生产灵活性.继而分析了影响种植户生存能力的负面因素,即:议价能力低、技术与操作水平低、外部交易成本高、销售渠道有限、抵御市场风险能力差.并指出为了提高生存能力,种植户采取了差异竞争、合作化及多元经营的生存策略.最后,从进一步降低成本与优化合作模式的角度提出了加强种植户生存能力的对策建议:指出循环利用工厂化企业废弃菌棒与杂菌污染菌棒可以有效降低生产成本;并提出在合作社发展基础薄弱的地区率先发展"农户+议价合作社+公司"的合作模式,在基础较好的地区大力推行"农户+合作社+超市"的合作模式.
展开▼
