Bioscience Methods 2026, Vol.17, No.3, 169-187 http://bioscipublisher.com/index.php/bm 1 75 Table 1 Main operational models of socialized rice production services Operational model Core content Main organizational carrier Main practical value Centralized seedling cultivation service model Unified nursery preparation, tray seedling production, delivery to farmers or service teams Seedling center+technical team Improves seedling uniformity, supports machine transplanting, reduces household nursery burden Full-process trusteeship service model for rice production Bundled services from pre-production to postharvest, partly or fully entrusted by farmers Service center+cooperative+specialized operation teams Reduces coordination costs and timing failures across stages Agricultural machinery scheduling and cross-regional operation model Seasonal dispatch of machinery across villages and towns, including emergency tasks Operation team+repair team+service booking Raises machinery utilization and supports timely peak-season operations Grain drying and postharvest service model Centralized drying, temporary storage, grain processing and preservation Drying center+storage+processing line Reduces postharvest loss and supports quality retention and branding Technical guidance and farmer training service model Agronomic advice, pest diagnosis, training, production guidance Technical team+training space+external experts Improves service quality, green production, and farmer trust in standardized management 4.1 Centralized seedling cultivation service model Centralized seedling cultivation is one of the clearest examples of how service organization can change the economics of rice production (Figure 2). In household-based production, raising seedlings is not only laborious; it is also highly variable. Timing, tray preparation, seed quality, temperature, and management consistency all affect later field performance. Once labor becomes scarce and machine transplanting becomes more common, this stage turns into a serious coordination problem. Centralized seedling services address that problem by moving the work into a specialized facility. Recent research on machinery rice transplanting and centralized rice seedling cultivation in China argues that these systems do more than save labor. They improve the efficiency of seedling supply, raise the space-use efficiency of nursery land, and even create a “seedling field saving” effect that can release time and land resources under crop rotation systems (Ruan et al., 2025). That finding is conceptually important because it shows that a service center can affect production before the crop even enters the main field. Mashan’s materials are consistent with that logic. The center reportedly supplies more than 200,000 trays of early- and late-rice seedlings per year and provides associated technical guidance to nearby farmers. In practical terms, such a model does three things. It standardizes the starting point of the crop. It reduces household-level technical unevenness. And it makes machine transplanting much easier to coordinate. When many households receive seedlings from the same center, later operations can be scheduled with much greater confidence. There is also a subtle institutional effect here. Seedling service often serves as the first point of deeper farmer-center cooperation. A household that begins by purchasing seedlings may later purchase transplanting, harvesting, drying, or even partial trusteeship. In that sense, centralized seedling supply is not a minor entry service. It can be the organizational gateway into the wider service system. 4.2 Full-process trusteeship service model for rice production The full-process trusteeship service model is perhaps the most important modern form of socialized rice production service. Under this model, farmers do not surrender land rights, but they rely on the service center or related provider to complete part or all of the production chain. The crucial point is not whether every farmer purchases every link. It is that a bundled service option exists, and that the burden of cross-stage coordination shifts away from the household.
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