How to Build a New Agricultural Operating System
Jia Weitao is a well-known large-scale grain grower in Heli Village, Wenshang County, Jining City, Shandong Province. He began transferring land in 2007, and today his family's planting scale has already exceeded 1,600 mu. In his view, there are many advantages to large-scale agricultural operation: "The cost of buying chemical fertilizers and pesticides is lower, and using large machinery makes labor more efficient." In a good harvest year, 1,600 mu of land can bring in more than 800,000 yuan in net income, which fills him with drive and convinces him that large-scale operation is the right path.
The "Comprehensive Implementation Plan for Deepening Rural Reform," issued recently by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, emphasizes that developing various forms of appropriately scaled agricultural operation is the inevitable path to agricultural modernization. The Plan also proposes building a three-dimensional, composite modern agricultural operating system that suits national conditions and the stage of development, based on household farming, linked by cooperation and association, and supported by socialized services.
Practice has proven that achieving appropriately scaled agricultural operation can better raise land output, resource utilization and labor productivity, and generate greater economies of scale. In recent years, all parts of China have been stepping up exploration of forms for achieving scaled agricultural operation. A fairly common situation is that when farmers go to work in cities themselves, they transfer the operating rights of their contracted land to others. On this basis, a group of relatively large-scale professional large growers, family farm operators, and leaders of farmers' cooperatives like Jia Weitao have emerged. Under their dedicated management, agricultural production efficiency and returns have both improved considerably.
All parts of the country are also continuously exploring more ways to achieve appropriately scaled agricultural operation. In some places, farmers are willing to adopt the method of contributing land operating rights as shares to establish agricultural cooperatives under a land shareholding cooperative system. Without transferring land operating rights, they similarly achieve scaled development. In still other places, land trusteeship is popular: farmers still go to work in cities, and the land is entrusted to agricultural socialized service organizations for management. This form also lowers the cost of agricultural production and improves returns.
Therefore, to develop various forms of appropriately scaled agricultural operation, efforts must be made on "various forms." Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Rural Work Leading Group and director of its office, pointed out that attention should be given to the entities and methods that achieve scaled operation by transferring land operating rights, and equal attention should be given to those that achieve scaled operation through methods such as land shareholding and land trusteeship.
The benefits of scaled agricultural operation are many, but one must never blindly seek size. Some family farm operators and large growers, when objective conditions are not yet mature, take too large a step in transferring land, and are also prone to losses or even more serious operational risks. In this regard, the Plan particularly emphasizes the issue of grasping the "degree" of scaled operation. Experts say that the development of scaled operation is a gradual process and cannot be divorced from reality or from national conditions by one-sidedly pursuing transfer speed and oversized scale. Exactly how much counts as "appropriate" needs to be determined according to multiple factors such as regional characteristics, land conditions, crop varieties, and productivity levels. It is certain to differ, and it is also dynamic.
Jia Weitao told reporters that he does not need to do everything himself to farm 1,600 mu of land: "The village has an agricultural machinery cooperative and a plant protection team. When the farming season comes, I make a phone call and they come to provide services." Developing various forms of appropriately scaled agricultural operation and building a modern agricultural operating system cannot be done without professional agricultural socialized service organizations. A sound agricultural socialized service system can free agricultural operating entities from some production and operation links and let them focus on giving play to their own advantages. It is strong support for the development of appropriately scaled agricultural operation.
In recent years, China's agricultural socialized service system has continued to develop and grow, but it still cannot meet the development needs of the broad masses of contracted farmers and scaled new agricultural operating entities. Therefore, this Plan once again deploys innovation in the agricultural socialized service mechanism. Through thoughtful and convenient socialized services, it aims to bring household farming onto the track of modern agricultural development, and proposes launching pilot innovations in mechanisms for the government to purchase public-interest services from agricultural for-profit service organizations.
To develop various forms of appropriately scaled agricultural operation, it is necessary not only to achieve an appropriate scale of land, but also to cultivate operating entities suited to it. At present, these new agricultural operating entities have gradually become a new force in modern agricultural development. To adapt to the future development situation, the scale of this contingent still needs to continue expanding, and more young forces and capable agricultural people need to be attracted to return to the countryside to farm.
Training a strong contingent of professional farmers is not easy. "Our agricultural vocational education must keep up. We must give play to the role of agricultural colleges and vocational colleges, adopt targeted methods, and train more and more new-type farmers who meet the needs of modern agricultural development. This is a very arduous task," said Han Jun, deputy director of the Office of the Central Rural Work Leading Group.