How to achieve agricultural modernization while protecting farmers

These past two days everyone has been hotly discussing agricultural modernization. Not long ago, the author went to Sheyang County, Jiangsu Province, to do field research and found that the “joint ploughing and joint sowing” they have promoted in recent years has fairly well solved the problem of agricultural modernization under smallholder conditions, and truly balanced the solution of both the agricultural problem and the farmer problem.

From the agricultural side, China has a large population and little land, and relatively few resources. How to ensure that the Chinese people eat their fill and eat well means agriculture has a heavy and long road ahead. From the farmer side, China still has close to 700 million rural residents, more than 200 million farming households and more than 200 million agricultural laborers, and most of the 200 million migrant workers who go to the cities to work or do business have not been able to settle down in the cities. Their parents still stay in the villages farming, and while they go to the cities to work when young, they may still return to the villages to farm when they are older. In other words, China still has close to 900 million people closely tied to agriculture and rural areas, and farming households still need to obtain income and employment opportunities from agriculture.

To solve the agricultural problem, agriculture must be equipped with modern equipment and technology, and agricultural modernization must be achieved. But the situation that China has a huge agricultural population, very little arable land per rural laborer, and scattered, fragmented plots must also be taken into account. Against this background, how can the level of agricultural equipment and technology be raised? How can agricultural modernization be achieved while protecting farmers? This is indeed the focus and the difficulty of China's current “three rural issues” policy.

Let us look at how Sheyang did it. Sheyang is a major agricultural county, with 2.02 million mu of arable land in the whole county, mainly planted with rice and wheat. When land was allocated to households, in order to be fair, “good fields were divided among every household, poor fields were shared out by every family,” so farm households' operating scale was very small and their plots were scattered, forming a widespread pattern of fragmented farmland management with “one field shared by many households” and “one household holding many fields.” This was not conducive to large agricultural machinery entering the fields to work, and because of scattered management and thousands of households each planting their own crops, varieties were not unified, sowing times were not unified, and even sowing methods were not unified, making it hard for agricultural technical services to reach the fields and households. Then, because returns from farming were limited, large numbers of young and middle-aged rural laborers went to the cities to work, and most of those left in the villages farming were elderly farmers over 55 years old. Because elderly farmers are not strong in labor power and are poorer at absorbing new agricultural technology, agricultural production became more and more extensive, which affected agricultural output and lowered agricultural returns.

In response to this situation, Sheyang County, through “joint ploughing and joint sowing,” took the existing strip fields of about 30 mu under “one field shared by many households,” broke down the ridges, and joined them into contiguous blocks. Through consultation a unified variety was determined, cooperative organizations carried out unified ploughing and sowing, and farm households were responsible for field management links such as water and fertilizer management and pest and disease control, thereby changing the previous pattern of scattered land management and severe fragmentation.

And because high-horsepower machinery could thereby enter the fields to work, returning straw to the field became possible. Through joint ploughing and joint sowing, without excluding farmers and without transferring farm households' land, the level of agricultural equipment and technology was raised, farmers' agricultural expenses were reduced, farmers' incomes were increased, agricultural output was raised, and agricultural productivity was truly unleashed.

Since the promotion of “joint ploughing and joint sowing” began in August 2013, several hundred thousand mu of arable land in the county have joined “joint ploughing and joint sowing,” the degree of agricultural mechanization has risen sharply in a short period, and advanced agricultural production technologies represented by machine transplanting of rice and drilling of wheat have spread rapidly. “Joint ploughing and joint sowing” has been especially warmly welcomed by the elderly and women, whose household labor power is relatively weak.

What matters most about Sheyang County's practice of “joint ploughing and joint sowing” is that, without excluding farmers, especially the elderly and women with weaker labor power, it broke down field ridges, advanced mechanization, and organically combined agricultural machinery with agronomy, rapidly raising agricultural production capacity and achieving the modernization of agriculture.

China's agricultural productivity is currently undergoing enormous changes, with three main points: first, the rapid advance of agricultural mechanization; second, the large-scale movement of young and middle-aged rural laborers into the cities; and third, the separation of land contractors from operators.

The rapid change in productivity requires corresponding adjustments in rural relations of production. Sheyang County, by breaking down field ridges, made it convenient for large machinery to work. Large machinery operations not only lowered the cost of machinery operations, but also made it possible to return straw to the field and to accommodate new agronomic techniques such as machine transplanting of seedlings and drilling of wheat, and through unified seeds and unified ploughing and sowing, made it easy to carry out unified prevention and treatment of pests and diseases, water and fertilizer management for rice and wheat, and the implementation of various socialized services.

Unlike Sheyang County, Shayang County in Hubei Province is mainly a hilly area, and each plot of land is not large. When land was allocated to households, in order to be fair, Shayang County's land was divided even more finely, often with one household's ten mu of land divided among the four directions of east, south, west and north, in seven or eight plots large and small. In the past, rural labor was surplus and the degree of mechanization was not high, with people carrying on shoulder poles and on their backs, so it did not matter if contracted land was somewhat scattered. By now, after young and middle-aged rural laborers have gone to the cities to work or do business, the elderly and women with weaker labor power find farming very tiring, and farmers hope to concentrate their scattered, fragmented land in one area, preferably one plot. Shayang County therefore used the ongoing rural land rights confirmation to guide farm households in contiguous farming by household.

According to Shayang County farmers, if contracted land previously scattered in different directions is concentrated contiguously into one plot by household, labor input and production costs can be reduced by more than 1/3. Most important, concentrating land in one area makes it convenient for machinery to enter the fields to work, so that the physically weaker rural elderly and women can still farm well.

Whether “joint ploughing and joint sowing” or “contiguous farming by household,” only a slight adjustment to land relations can unleash enormous agricultural productivity, and this unleashed agricultural productivity does not exclude at all the physically weaker elderly and women who have become the main body of agriculture, thus balancing agricultural development with farmers' farming and income.

The author believes that the direction of China's agricultural modernization should not be an approach that excludes farmers, makes farmers exit agriculture, and supports new types of agricultural operating entities, but rather an approach that provides services to the thousands upon thousands of ordinary farm households like this, and “three rural issues” policy should balance the agricultural problem and the farmer problem.