-
Activating farmers' own capital is the right path
Activating farmers' own capital rather than urban capital flowing to the countryside is the right path for agricultural capitalization. In the era of agricultural capitalization, whose capital is flowing to the countryside? Who reaps the benefits of that capital? Only by activating farmers' own capital and enabling farmers to profit from agricultural capitalization can
-
How do large-scale grain growers choose plant protection machinery?
I want to let the "Flying Tigers" take off and bring the "rice planthoppers" down. At the end of August, right at the critical juncture for preventing and controlling diseases and pests in late rice, at the Guobing Agricultural Machinery Cooperative in Chuanxing Village, Paitou Township, Xiangtan County, Hunan Province, large-scale grain grower Zhang Aiguo was busy overhauling plant protection aircraft. He gave his own agricultural aircraft plant protection team a resounding name:
-
How Cooperatives Can Follow a Development Path with Chinese Characteristics
In recent years, China's farmer cooperatives have flourished, and the situation is very encouraging. The broad masses of rural cadres and people, in studying and exploring how to develop cooperatives well and quickly, have created much valuable experience. Looking back on the history of farmer cooperative development since reform and opening up
-
Farmers Will Become a Profession Rather Than an Identity in the Future, Taking the Path of Large-Scale Development
Li Yining said that in the future a farmer will no longer be an identity, but a profession. In the future, China's agricultural practitioners will be farm owners, farmer cooperatives, agricultural enterprises and so on who truly understand agricultural technology, and agricultural planting and production will take the path of large-scale development. Famous economist Li Yi
-
How is seed industry reform being advanced? Various regions explore new paths
Reform stimulates vitality, innovation drives development. To implement the work arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council on deepening the reform of the scientific research system, since the beginning of this year, Beijing, Hubei, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Heilongjiang and other provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have been encouraging scientific and technological personnel to innovate
-
How to Tackle Livestock and Poultry Farming Pollution? Pathways and Countermeasures Analyzed
As people's living standards continue to rise, the demand for livestock and poultry products has also increased year by year. The development of the livestock and poultry farming industry has played an important role in guaranteeing the supply of livestock and poultry products in urban and rural areas, promoting farmers' income growth, and invigorating the rural economy. However, the resulting pollutant emissions
-
Where is the way out for rural land transfer reform?
What we are going to discuss with you today is the direction of rural land transfer reform, that is, where the path of rural land transfer reform lies. When talking about rural land transfer reform, one cannot avoid talking about the transformation of urbanization. Dr. Li Keqiang spoke about "people-centered" urbanization, and then went on to talk about
-
How can Chinese agriculture escape the smallholder predicament?
China's smallholder agriculture since the Sui and Tang dynasties. A smallholder refers to an individual farming household that relies entirely or mainly on its own labor to carry out agricultural operations smaller than the scale its labor capacity could handle. Smallholder agriculture refers to the small-scale farming operated by smallholders. According to "A History of China's Land System" by economists Zhao Gang and Chen Zhongyi, during the period from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Northern and Southern dynasties, land relations were not yet strained, and farming households operated 50-60 mu; limited by agricultural technology at the time, households could not cultivate more land, so the scale of agricultural operation matched the farming capacity of the household and was at a reasonable level. By the author's definition, farming households at that time did not yet count as smallholders. After the Sui and Tang dynasties, China's population growth outpaced the increase in cultivated land area, and with improvements in farm tools, fertilization and other agricultural techniques, the human-land relationship began to tighten, and the trend of more people and less land became increasingly obvious. The Tang dynasty implemented the equal-field system, with 65 mu per household as the upper limit, regardless of whether land was left fallow, and farming households often could not reach this upper limit. In the early Northern Song dynasty, the average cultivated land per household was 40 mu. During the Southern Song period, as the population increased, per capita cultivated land fell rapidly, and the vast majority of farming households cultivated less than 25 mu. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, average cultivated land per household gradually decreased even further. By 1936, average cultivated land per household was only 18.4 mu, and per capita cultivated land for farmers was 3.6 mu. It can be said that only after the Sui and Tang dynasties did China's farming households come to be called smallholders, and smallholder agriculture began to take shape.</p> <p> After the founding of New China, with population growth and advances in agricultural technology, the human-land relationship became even more strained, and the scale of smallholder operations became even smaller. At present, the average cultivated land per household in China is only 7.5 mu, equivalent to 1/40 of the European Union and 1/400 of the United States, and less than 1/2 of Japan and South Korea. Therefore, Chinese agriculture is a typical smallholder agriculture below the reasonable level of the human-land relationship. In addition, land plots are fragmented, with 7-8 plots per household on average, each plot averaging only about 1 mu; many farming households in Guangxi and elsewhere have a dozen or twenty-plus plots, most of them only a few tenths of a mu, so land management is especially highly small-scale and dispersed.</p> <p> Accordingly, the author's view is that from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties to the present, over a thousand years, the scale of farming household operations has gradually fallen to an economically increasingly unreasonable low level; households are capable of cultivating far more than they actually cultivate, the surplus agricultural labor force has gradually increased, farming households have become typical smallholders, and agriculture has become typical smallholder agriculture.</p> <p> <strong> The "smallholder predicament"</strong></p> <p> Relying on intensive smallholder agriculture, China has always fed the world's largest population. But it cannot be denied that China has many people and little land, the human-land contradiction is prominent, and the scale of agricultural operation is too small, making it economically unreasonable. Smallholder agriculture with less than 10 mu per household is below a reasonable scale of agricultural operation, resulting in a large surplus of labor, low agricultural production efficiency, and increased agricultural production costs per unit area for cultivation, harvesting, fertilizing and spraying. Smallholder agriculture is also not conducive to the use of advanced agricultural machinery and equipment, restricts improvements in agricultural production efficiency, and narrows the space for agricultural production returns. Taking grain-growing households as an example, the single-season return from one mu of land is about 200 yuan; calculated at an average of 7.5 mu per household, the return is less than 2,000 yuan. If labor costs are priced at market rates, then working in agriculture amounts to self-employment, and agricultural returns amount to wage income. The author believes that China's smallholder agriculture has fallen into a "smallholder low-level development predicament", or "smallholder predicament" for short, meaning that smallholder agriculture is "low-profit agriculture" (even "no-profit agriculture"): not only is the return per unit area low, but because the operating scale is small, total returns are also low; low returns in turn limit the capacity for agricultural investment and reduce enthusiasm for investment, leading to slow application of agricultural technology and extensive cultivation or even abandonment of land. Smallholder agriculture has low output, low efficiency, low returns and low input, a low-level cycle that is difficult to move toward modernization.</p> <p> In modern society, the commodity attributes of agricultural products have become increasingly obvious; besides meeting their own needs, the agricultural products produced by smallholders must also be sold on the market, and smallholder agriculture is inevitably affected by domestic and international agricultural product markets. Especially in the wave of agricultural globalization, smallholders find it difficult to "keep to themselves" as in traditional agriculture; their production, demand, prices and returns are all deeply affected by world agriculture. In recent years, domestic grain prices have continued to be higher than international market prices, and the own predicament of smallholders and smallholder agriculture has been intensified by pressure from the international market. The "smallholder predicament" is like a huge boulder holding back the pace of China's modern agriculture.</p> <p> <strong> From smallholders to family farms: the path out of the "smallholder predicament"</strong></p> <p> The important difference between smallholders and family farms lies in the difference in operating scale. If a farming household's operating scale is smaller than its labor and management capacity, it is a smallholder; if larger than its labor and management capacity, it is a family farm. A small operating scale is the main characteristic of smallholders and also the main cause of the "smallholder predicament". Once the operating scale of a farming household reaches a reasonable level matching its labor force and management capacity, the smallholder moves toward a family farm, the agricultural operating situation improves, and agricultural income increases and becomes comparable to non-agricultural employment income. Taking grain production as an example, survey and calculation data from the Ministry of Agriculture show that under current production conditions, a sown area of 100-120 mu is the scale standard distinguishing smallholders from family farms. According to research by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, only an agricultural operating scale of no less than 170 mu for cash crops and no less than 300 mu for grain crops is internationally competitive. For a period in the future, both family farms and smallholders will be the main actors in China's agricultural operations, but family farms operated by professional farmers above the moderate scale are the vehicle for Chinese agriculture to escape the "smallholder predicament" and the direction for smallholder agriculture to be thoroughly transformed.</p> <p> At present, China has gradually acquired the economic and social conditions for moderate-scale operation, and moderate-scale land operation will become inevitable. The prerequisite for scale land operation is the transfer of surplus agricultural labor to the secondary and tertiary industries and the achievement of full employment in non-agricultural industries. Countries around the world generally take the stable transfer of 60%-70% of the agricultural labor force into non-agricultural industries as the starting condition for agricultural scale operation. Most developed countries have relied on gradually concentrating land to achieve agricultural scale operation and thereby achieve agricultural modernization. With the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization, the declining share of the rural labor force engaged in agriculture will become increasingly obvious. In 2012, China's total number of migrant workers exceeded 260 million, of whom more than 160 million worked away from home. There are about 150 million new-generation migrant workers, who basically do not know how to farm and will not make a living from farming in the future. In the long run, they have the possibility of breaking away from agriculture and from the land. In the developed coastal areas of eastern China, the inner suburbs of some large and medium-sized cities, and some areas of the central and western regions where large numbers of agricultural laborers go out to work, the conditions for moderate-scale land operation already exist. By the end of 2013, the area of contracted cultivated land transferred in China had reached 340 million mu, accounting for 26% of the national contracted cultivated land area. According to Ministry of Agriculture statistics, by the end of 2012, the country's 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities (excluding Xizang) had a total of 877,000 family farms, accounting for less than 1% of the total number of farming households, with an operated cultivated land area of 176 million mu, an average operating scale of 200 mu, and 13.4% of the national contracted cultivated land area.</p> <p> Formulating a family farm development strategy and cultivating family farms is an important path to promoting the development of modern agriculture. In recent years, Jiangxi province, Jiangsu province, Hunan province, Suzhou city and some other areas have issued special fiscal subsidy policies to promote moderate-scale operation. At the central level, on the basis of drawing on local experience, special guiding documents to promote moderate-scale operation can be drafted, encouraging localities to support moderate-scale agricultural operation and family farm development on the premise of adhering to the basic rural operating system and protecting farmers' land rights and interests. Subsidy and support policies for family farms and smallholders (ordinary farming households) should mainly treat them equally, but there should be preferential policies for smallholders growing into family farms. It is suggested that national agricultural subsidies and agricultural development projects establish special programs to support agricultural scale operation entities. The central finance, agriculture, comprehensive agricultural development and other departments can, on the basis of existing policies, formulate and issue subsidies and projects specifically guiding and supporting agricultural scale operation and family farms. Through policy support, break the "smallholder low-level development predicament", guide moderate-scale agricultural operation, and create the basic conditions for realizing agricultural modernization. It must be emphasized that the move from smallholders to family farms is a gradual process; farmers must not be forced or induced to transfer land simply in pursuit of agricultural operating scale, and family farms must not be pieced together simply by lumping together and building up large households.</p> <p> </p>
-
Many Difficulties in Land Confirmation, Pilots Explore New Paths First
In land confirmation and registration, what should be done when the original contracted land accounts do not match reality and the area is inaccurate? In the past, areas were underreported for fear of paying more agricultural tax; now that tax is no longer paid, what should be done if farmers suffer losses during land confirmation and transfer? In response to the many practical problems encountered in land confirmation and registration, Jiangsu
-
Crowdfunding is the path agriculture must inevitably take
China is a major agricultural country, and developing agriculture is an inevitable path for China. As China has increased its support for agriculture in recent years, issues of agricultural land, production, and agricultural technology have all seen new progress. In 2013, the central government took a variety of
条件筛选