How can the problem of sustainable income growth for farmers be solved?

Today is the second day in Xiangyuan. Together with Xuan Dafeng, director of the county agricultural machinery bureau, we went to Guhan Town to visit households. The villages we visited are in a typical gully region of the Loess Plateau, where the land is poorly leveled.

Construction workers' incomes are falling. Soon, we arrived at the first farm household. The male head of the household, Wang Jianqing, is 31 years old. His family has 4 mu of land, all planted with corn, and besides farming he also works odd jobs at a construction site in the county town. When asked how this year's income was, he said: “Last year I worked about 200-plus days in total. At 100 yuan per day, my annual income from odd jobs was more than 20,000 yuan. This year I have only worked a little over 10 days so far. At this rate, this year's expected income from odd jobs will be a few thousand yuan at most.” When asked why it is so hard to find work this year, he said: “The real estate market is sluggish this year, and jobs are very hard to find.” His answer made us feel that construction workers face considerable difficulty finding employment this year.

Coal miners' incomes are falling. Wang Jianqing's older sister, Wang Jianfeng, said that her husband works at a coal mine, and his income has also dropped severely. She stays at home taking care of the children, and all their income depends on her husband going down the mine. Last year he could earn 40,000 yuan; this year they estimate it will not even reach 30,000 yuan. Hearing the brother and sister pour out their troubles swept away all the happiness we had felt on the road.

⟦NL> Low land output. When we reached the neighboring farm household, we saw five or six middle-aged women chatting. When they heard why we had come, they immediately burst into lively discussion. It turned out that the husbands of these women were all construction workers, and everyone said that jobs are hard to find this year and incomes have fallen sharply. When asked why they do not come back to farm the land, or grow greenhouse crops to raise their incomes, everyone said that the village land has no irrigation and depends entirely on the weather, so only corn can be grown. Wang Qiushan, a 50-year-old woman, said: “My husband earned 30,000 yuan last year, but after food and expenses he brought home only 10,000 yuan. Even getting through the New Year was hard. For our son to marry, the bride's family wants 80,000 yuan in bride price, and my head aches just thinking about it.” When we asked why the land output is so low, Wang Qiushan said: “Our family originally had 10 mu of contracted land, but it was all returned to forest under the Grain for Green program, and the government gives a subsidy of 90 yuan per mu each year. What we farm now is the original wasteland, and the land output is not high.”