Vice Minister of Agriculture Chen Xiaohua: Guide the Innovative Development of Cooperatives

Website News  On September 29-30, the National Farmers' Cooperative Innovative Development Symposium was held in Harbin, Heilongjiang. Vice Minister of Agriculture Chen Xiaohua emphasized at the meeting that we must proceed from reality, fully respect farmers' wishes, adapt measures to local conditions, provide classified guidance, strengthen support and services, guide and promote the standardized operation and innovative development of cooperatives, continuously enhance their economic strength, development vitality and driving capacity, and promote agricultural transformation and upgrading.

The meeting pointed out that accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development model and promoting agricultural transformation and upgrading has become the main line of our country's agricultural and rural economic work. Farmers' cooperatives must adapt to the new changes in agricultural development, reflect the new requirements of the times, and play an important role in promoting agricultural transformation and upgrading, guiding farmers into the market, and promoting farmers' income growth and prosperity. Developing farmers' cooperatives helps improve the degree of farmers' organization and advance the strategic adjustment of the agricultural structure; helps promote large-scale operations in multiple forms and enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of agriculture; and helps advance green production and improve the quality of agricultural products.

The meeting emphasized that standardization is the foundation of cooperative development. Only by doing a good job in standardization can cooperatives reflect their own basic attributes and always adhere to the purpose of serving members; innovation is the driving force of cooperative development. Only by doing a good job in innovation can cooperatives continuously enhance their creativity and appeal and shoulder the historical mission entrusted by the times. We must persist in grasping both standardization and innovation and promoting both, and on the basis of persistently doing a good job in the standardized development of cooperatives, actively explore innovation in cooperative organizational forms, industrial formats, operating mechanisms and support methods, and rely on innovation-driven development to make cooperatives bigger and stronger. No matter what type of cooperative it is, as long as it complies with laws and regulations, adheres to cooperative principles, and is welcomed by the farmer masses, it must be allowed and encouraged, and measures must be taken to guide it, so that cooperatives become an important platform for mass entrepreneurship and innovation in the agricultural field, and further stimulate the driving force and vitality of rural entrepreneurship and innovation.

The meeting required that four key areas of work be done well at present: First, conscientiously summarize the fresh experience at the grassroots level, generalize and summarize the different development models of new types of agricultural business entities, strengthen publicity and promotion, let the farmer masses choose independently according to their own needs, and turn “potted landscapes” into “scenery”. Second, solidly do a good job in pilot demonstrations, steadily carry out reform pilots such as cooperative credit cooperation, continue to carry out demonstration cooperative creation actions, deeply analyze development models, and drive overall work. Third, accelerate the training of cooperative leaders, make the training of cooperative leaders a long-term important task, adopt multiple forms, and train and reserve a large number of leaders with Internet thinking, good at business management, and mastery of advanced technology. Fourth, actively create a good legal and policy environment, strengthen investigation and research, adhere to problem orientation and open-door law revision, extensively listen to the opinions of cooperatives and the farmer masses, and put forward highly targeted suggestions for revising the Law on Farmers' Professional Cooperatives; further implement and improve existing policies, let the value of the policies be fully demonstrated, and let the broad farmer masses and cooperatives have a greater sense of gain.