What path should be taken to make rural areas larger and farmers fewer?
The urban-rural dual structure is an inevitable result of China's urbanization development and resource allocation. Because cities produce more and rural areas produce less. Farmers increasingly rely on working in cities, resulting in quieter rural areas and more bustling cities. Why is it so hard for farmers to make a living in rural areas? The reason is that as the rural population swells, with more people and less land, backward agricultural production struggles to meet the material needs of a growing population, while rapid urbanization and efficient resource allocation make it easier for farmers to work for wages than to farm. Moreover, this situation is difficult to change. To "make a living," farmers must leave their hometowns - this is the basic national condition.
In fact, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Because China's extensive high-speed economic development requires a large amount of cheap labor. China's economy has also benefited from the demographic dividend, but farmers' excessive reliance on cities has also exposed the contradiction that this structurally unbalanced economic development is unsustainable. For example, social contradictions in large cities are beginning to emerge: high population flow, high housing prices, high pollution; the population of large cities is overwhelmed; per capita distribution is imbalanced, and so on. The government faces a dilemma between encouraging farmers to move to cities and the excessive population pressure on large cities. Therefore, people's livelihood has become an important long-term issue for the government to address, exploring the path of farmer development. For example, new rural construction and encouraging return-home entrepreneurship have become urgent priorities for solving the path of farmer development.
But what are the problems restricting rural farmer development? I will analyze the problems existing in rural areas from the perspective of land use.
First, rural housing. China's rural areas are called natural villages. Their characteristic is scattered rural housing, most lacking scientific layout and planning. Due to rural population growth, farmers' demand for homestead land keeps growing. Disorderly and extensive land occupation, lacking limited government supervision, will relentlessly and continuously encroach on forest land and even valuable arable land. This intensifies the contradiction of more people and less land in rural areas. At the same time, it further causes the land resources on which farmers depend for survival to lose their value for economic development, endangering food security. Moreover, the messy construction of rural housing and inconvenient transportation further replicate the primitive, inefficient, resource-wasting extensive lifestyle. This has become a stumbling block to rural economic development. What is even more frightening is that now, in many places, the wave of speculation in homestead land is already surging beneath the surface. The road to defending farmers' land rights is long - who will walk it with you?
Second, rural graves. Now rural areas still maintain the custom of burial, and in some rural areas this concept is deeply entrenched. China's rural population is huge and rapidly entering an aging society. The demand for cemetery land will brew new social contradictions. Now urban people all have this lament: in life, a slave to housing; in death, a slave to the grave. Then what about rural areas? In fact, many rural areas have little land. One's own grave can only be placed on one's allocated arable land. In some places, burials are disorderly. This kind of thing happens every day. The living and the dead are competing for land. The dead have passed away, but the living still have to live, and to live they must eat, but the land they depend on for survival is becoming less and less. What is even more incredible is that luxury cemeteries are commonly seen. For poor people's funerals, someone comes to demand money; if you have no money, you must take the body for cremation - strange things happen one after another. Rural areas remain ancient and mysterious!
Third, rural tyrants. Now rural land use rights are ambiguously defined, giving rural tyrants an opportunity. Although in some places arable land is divided according to land contracts (in some places in Guangdong, arable land has in practice reverted to the old system, namely inheritance under ancestral rules), in some places private plots and homestead land are inherited under ancestral rules. Due to population growth, homestead land has become profitable. If you can occupy it, you occupy it; once occupied, it is your own. Because the sky is high and the emperor is far away, and there is no evidence to check. Some people want to defend their rights. But do you have a homestead certificate, land use certificate, or other valid documents? Rural areas do not have them. Ancestral inheritance has no law to follow. Therefore, once occupied, it is occupied; the strong prey on the weak, and lawless rural land abuse will intensify.
Fourth, agricultural production. In current agricultural production, for many farmers, per capita land is less than a few fen. It tastes bland but is a pity to discard. Some have no choice but to find another way out. Therefore, much arable land is scarce and valueless and has to be abandoned. On the other hand, land suitable for farming may be occupied for other uses. Some land cannot be cultivated but has no other use. So arable land lacks unified layout and is scarce and artificially scattered. This hinders the industrialized development of modern agriculture and also becomes an important problem restricting rural farmer development.
In summary, farmer development cannot be separated from the agricultural land on which they depend for survival and development. Develop agricultural industrialization and improve agricultural competitiveness. Establish a unified layout and open up functional regional economies, including agricultural production, agricultural materials trade, agricultural product processing, agricultural product logistics, and agricultural research. These cannot be separated from unified agricultural layout, efficient use of limited land resources, and improved regional supporting facilities.
Therefore, the development of rural farmers should follow a path of "large rural areas, fewer farmers" with efficient and economical use of land resources.
What is "large rural areas, fewer farmers"? It means the government establishes farmer communities to absorb farmers' residence and form large farmer communities; improves community service supporting facilities; plans regional land functions well (plant flowers where flowers should be planted, build pigsties where pigsties should be built); restricts rural farm housing; releases more land; improves management systems; clarifies the transfer of land use rights; and improves the rural land management system. Create favorable conditions, develop agricultural industrialization and specialty agriculture, guide farmers toward further division of labor; let the land create more value; make rural areas larger and farmers fewer.