New farmers innovate ecological agricultural production methods
Recently, with the introduction of the "National Agricultural Sustainable Development Plan (2015-2030)", promoting agricultural transformation and upgrading has become a hot issue urgently in need of attention. The emergence of the group known as "new farmers" happens to meet the needs of ecological agricultural development, and their actions are highly consistent with the goal of "promoting the development of eco-friendly agriculture" proposed in the No. 1 Central Document, greatly promoting ecological agriculture and food safety.
Du Zhixiong, deputy director of the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has long paid attention to and studied the "new farmers" group, and has published many related works over the past few years. Recently, Mr. Du Zhixiong received an exclusive interview with a Xinhua News Agency reporter, and conducted in-depth discussions on the concept of "new farmers", their current development status, and the survival issues of "new farmers".
"New farmers" are new in their ecological production methods and independently choose to realize social value
Reporter: The term "new farmers" has not been around for long, and there are currently many different definitions of it. How do you understand the concept of "new farmers"?
Du Zhixiong: The concept of "new farmers" roughly began to appear in 2013, but there is still a lack of scientific and authoritative definition. In early 2014, based on my own understanding of the "new farmers" phenomenon, I made a definition somewhat different from others: it generally refers to natural persons and legal persons who differ from traditional smallholders in their production and circulation methods and who participate in the entire industry chain of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries with completely new modern business concepts. The core word in this concept is farmer. It first refers to producers directly engaged in agriculture, and secondly also includes agriculture-related practitioners who provide support for agricultural production.
⟦NL> Reporter: Then what is the difference between "new farmers" and traditional agricultural practitioners?
Du Zhixiong: The essential characteristic that distinguishes "new farmers" from ordinary farmers is this: they are based on ecological self-awareness and apply and innovate an environmentally friendly, resource-conserving "ecological production method". I use the words "apply" and "innovate" here because in practice we can find that some "new farmers" not only apply existing ecological agricultural production technologies, but also attach great importance to innovating and developing new ecological agricultural technologies according to local conditions, which is especially valuable. Compared with traditional agricultural practitioners, the biggest difference of "new farmers" is that they produce according to ecological agricultural production methods. Because the traditional petroleum-based agricultural production method uses large amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, on the one hand it easily leads to serious quality problems in agricultural products, making them unable to meet social needs, and more importantly, it also seriously deteriorates the agricultural production environment, such as soil and water source quality, severely undermining agricultural sustainability. "New farmers" emerged against this background and in order to change this situation. Therefore I always emphasize that ecological production methods are the gene and soul of "new farmers".
Reporter: What do you think the value of this group, the "new farmers", is reflected in after its emergence?
Du Zhixiong: Here I want to emphasize that "new farmers" are a group of people with "ecological self-awareness". The origin of their actions is not advocacy by anyone, but an active cognition arising from within. Moreover, at the beginning, many "new farmers" did not engage in agricultural production entirely from the perspective of profit. The reason "new farmers" are valuable is that their actions are consistent with the pursuits of the entire country and society, they advocate ecological agricultural production methods, and they pursue high standards of product quality, which is consistent with the state's proposal to transform agricultural development methods and pursue balanced development of the quality and quantity of agricultural products. It should be said that in the past one or two years, with the general increase in social ecological awareness and awareness of the quality and safety of agricultural products, more and more agricultural producers have been applying environmentally friendly and resource-conserving technologies in agriculture, and they have greatly expanded the ranks of "new farmers".
Reporter: Do you think there is any inevitable connection between "new farmers" and "Internet Plus"?
Du Zhixiong: This again involves the issue of the concept of "new farmers". In fact, many people currently have a tendency to understand the concept of "new farmers" in a more generalized and pragmatic way. For example, the "China New Farmers Research Report (2014)" released by AliResearch refers to those engaged in agricultural product e-commerce as "new farmers", and so on. In practice, indeed many "new farmers" use "Internet Plus" to market their products, and "Internet Plus" is actually "social value plus". But I believe that defining "new farmers" must not depart from its essential characteristic -- applying and innovating ecological agricultural production methods in agricultural production and helping promote the transformation of China's agricultural development mode. Without emphasizing this point, there is no difference at all between "new farmers" and old farmers.