Harvest Loss in China : Rice, Mechanization, and the Moral Hazard of Outsourcing

Abstract

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.