Modern agriculture becomes the cornerstone of Northeast China's economic revitalization

Northeast China is one of the important grain production bases of China and even the world. In recent years, various parts of Northeast China have continuously explored paths for modern agricultural development, with remarkable results.

The renewal of agricultural tools, innovation in rural finance, and large-scale operation through land transfer……these distinctive reforms have continuously improved agricultural production efficiency in Northeast China, providing strong support for Northeast China's revitalization and “fresh start.”

Four aircraft in neat formation swept low over the ten-thousand-mu high-yield organic soybean demonstration base of Qixing Farm under the Heilongjiang Provincial State Farm Bureau, leaving four white trails that stood out strikingly against the green seedlings……

This kind of scene of aircraft spraying chemicals is already fairly common on Heilongjiang farms today. Not only that, agricultural machinery in many areas of this province has been equipped with GPS systems, and farmland adopts precision soil testing and formula fertilization, which is highly targeted.

At the Modern Agricultural Development Center of Hongxing Farm, staff need only click a mouse, and the entire trajectory and workload of the corresponding agricultural machinery operating in the fields are clear at a glance, while the fertilization formula for the corresponding farmland plot is also accurately provided by the computer system.

In Dahuangdi Village, Jilin City, Jilin Province, known for rice production, people are rarely seen in the fields during the busy farming season. In a small monitoring room, operator Fang Xiaoqiang need only look at the computer screen to take in several hundred mu of rice paddies at a glance.

“Through the computer we can know the temperature and humidity in the fields, and the planted varieties and development times can also be checked at any time. Each plot only needs a few workers to manage.” Fang Xiaoqiang said.

Local farmers say that here seedling raising, transplanting, fertilizing, and harvesting are fully mechanized, and modern agriculture has enabled Dahuangdi Village to save 15% in production costs and increase per-unit yield by 18%.

In addition to production equipment, the funding difficulties troubling farmers are also gradually being solved. Financial resources are supporting farmers in Northeast China through various innovative financing methods, and their enthusiasm for agricultural production continues to rise.

In the home of Qiao Xianhui, a villager in Sihecheng Village, Beipiao City, Liaoning Province, a small green-covered booklet marked “Loan Certificate” has brought many changes to their lives.

The booklet clearly states that the “credit limit” is 30,000 yuan and the credit rating is “AA grade.” “The loan certificate is similar to a credit card. With my grade, I can get a 30,000 yuan loan from the credit cooperative within one day without collateral.” Qiao Xianhui said.

With the support of the Beipiao Sub-branch of the People's Bank of China, Beipiao City, Liaoning Province, began building a rural credit system across the whole area in 2006. Nearly 90% of farming households have established electronic credit files, and more than 50% of farming households have credit ratings.

In Jilin Province, the Changchun Central Sub-branch of the People's Bank of China, on the one hand, guides agriculture-related financial institutions to establish detailed and complete files, and on the other hand independently develops a database integrating credit reporting, sorting, and analysis.

To meet farmers' diversified financial needs, Jilin Province and Heilongjiang Province have designed a series of rural financial products through innovative mortgage and pledge models. Financial institutions are effectively linked with guarantee companies and agricultural insurance, solving many financial bridge-breaking problems where banks “want to lend but dare not” and farmers “want to borrow but cannot.”

“After taking copies of my ID card, household registration booklet, and land contractual management right certificate to the city-level service platform for mortgage review, and then going to the bank for registration, I successfully borrowed 300,000 yuan.” said Liu Jinjiang, a major grain grower in Tongjiang City, Heilongjiang Province.

According to data disclosed by the Jilin Provincial Financial Office, as of the end of May this year, Jilin Province had issued nearly 30,000 land revenue guarantee loans, amounting to 1.5 billion yuan, effectively activating various agricultural production factors.

Land is the most important factor of agricultural production. In Northeast China, innovative land transfer methods have greatly improved agricultural production efficiency, and the production pattern of large-scale agriculture is gradually taking shape.

“The same field, two vastly different incomes.” Land transfer enabled Wang Zhigang, a farmer in Shenbei New District, Shenyang City, to make a “dazzling transformation.” “After the family's 30 mu of contracted farmland was transferred to Huishan Dairy Company, there is an annual rent of more than 20,000 yuan, and I was also hired by the company as a driver with a monthly salary of more than 2,000 yuan.”

Specialized operation by agricultural enterprises, cooperative group production to enter the market, investment in building family farms……the area of rural land management rights transferred in Liaoning Province is nearly 14 million mu, accounting for about one quarter of the total contracted farmland of farmers.

In Jilin Province, 24% of farmland has now been transferred to new types of agricultural business entities such as major grain growers, family farms, and farmers' professional cooperatives, and many support policies also lean toward new types of agricultural business entities.

Since the implementation of the comprehensive supporting reform for modern agriculture in Heilongjiang Province's “two major plains” one year ago, huge dividends have been released, and the grain-growing capacity of new types of business entities in this province has improved significantly. Last year, Heilongjiang Province's total grain output reached 135.2 billion jin, setting a new historical high.

Northeast China, known for its fertile black soil, is continuously innovating production methods in pursuit of transformation and upgrading. “Northeast China is welcoming a new round of revitalization opportunities.” said Li Zheng, vice dean of the School of Economics at Jilin University.