The Impact of Forestry Industry Integration on the Forest Farmers' Income in China: A Theoretical and Empirical Study

Transforming the forestry development model and promoting the development of forestry industry integration (FII) has become an important way for forestry to break through development bottlenecks and realize the increase of farmers’ income. In this study, we use the inter provincial data from 2005 to 2019 to test the effect of FII on forest farmers’ income with the help of fixed effect model, quantile regression model and spatial panel model. Results showed that, firstly, the level of FII is on the rise, with most provinces in the middle or high integration stage. Among them, the Northeast region is at the highest level. Secondly, there is a positive spatial correlation in the forest farmers’ income, which is gradually increasing. The income of forest farmers in coastal provinces is relatively high, forming an HH cluster. Thirdly, the FII has significantly im-proved the income level of forest farmers, and there is a significant spatial spillover effect. Finally, the group heterogeneity is reflected in the increasing income effect of FII with the improvement of the income level of forest farmers. Regional heterogeneity shows that the FII in Northeastern, Eastern, and Central regions significantly promotes the increase of forest farmers’ income. Efforts to boost integrated forestry industry development will broaden the income channels of forest farmers by leveraging high productivity of the agglomeration effects, diffusion effect and demonstration effect, and promoting integrated forestry industry development with adjacent regions. This work may help to understand this relationship and to creating effective regional forestry development income-enhancing policies.