To support farmers, we must first truly understand them
Enriching farmers, improving farmers and supporting farmers means not only creating conditions to encourage the development of new types of agricultural business entities, but also not forgetting those “silent majority”
Some time ago, I attended a symposium where financial institutions met face to face with new types of agricultural business entities. After the symposium ended, participants from financial institutions exclaimed one after another: today's farmers are truly remarkable, so different from the past. They were not only surprised by how much these large grain growers and heads of agricultural professional cooperatives knew about crop cultivation methods, domestic and international agricultural production conditions, and grain market trends; they were even more astonished by how much these new types of agricultural business entities understood financial instruments such as futures, with their grasp in certain areas even exceeding that of these professionals.
Similar exclamations have been heard often in recent years. Some exclaim that farmers' appearance is “increasingly stylish”, while others exclaim that farmers' minds are “increasingly shrewd”. The “unexpected” image of farmers gives them a strong shock.
In fact, deep beneath this shock lies a lack of understanding of farmers. As rural reform continues to deepen, and in step with the development of agriculture and rural areas, this group of farmers is indeed undergoing profound changes. As agricultural production shifts from traditional smallholder operations to an intensive, organized and socialized modern agricultural management system, large grain growers, family farms, professional cooperatives and other new types of agricultural production and business entities are constantly emerging in various places. With the help of good policies that strengthen agriculture, enrich farmers and benefit farmers, and relying on the increasingly rich information and funding channels in rural areas, they have become a new force driving fellow villagers to prosperity and building modern agriculture.
⟦NL> While seeing the tremendous progress farmers have made in modern agriculture, we must also see the new problems that have emerged at present. At present, in China's countryside there are still many farmers whose scientific and cultural quality is not high, who lack ways to become rich, and some farmers have not even been lifted out of poverty. Those who have become rich first, those still on the road to prosperity; those who have left, those who remain, those who farm, those who do business... this group of farmers displays increasingly strong diverse characteristics.
Farmers are the main body of agricultural and rural development. Farmers' development is both the foundation of agricultural modernization and the ultimate goal of agricultural modernization. How to realize farmers' modernization is the most arduous task in solving the “three rural issues”. If China is to become rich, farmers must become rich. Solving the future question of “who will farm the land” also essentially requires solving the problem of farmers. An important prerequisite for enriching farmers, improving farmers and supporting farmers is to comprehensively understand farmers and know farmers.
To comprehensively understand this group of farmers, we must first eliminate the “stereotypes” about them and dynamically see the changes in this group as it becomes increasingly diverse and increasingly aligned with modernization. Perhaps only when people no longer utter all kinds of exclamations about farmers' changes will they truly have a complete and accurate understanding of farmers. Second, we must face reality squarely: whether new types of agricultural business entities, left-behind elderly people, left-behind children, or poor farming households, they are all real groups of farmers living in China's vast rural areas today. Just as for understanding present-day China, the modern cities with high-rise buildings, complete infrastructure and complete public services are China, and the vast rural areas that are still not rich, still not beautiful and still relatively backward are also China.
To enrich farmers, improve farmers and support farmers, on the one hand we must create more conditions to encourage the development of new types of agricultural business entities, because they represent the direction of China's agricultural modernization. But we should also not forget those “silent majority”, and we must find ways to let them live steady, warm lives with a “sense of gain”, because only when their lives are good will agricultural and rural development truly be good.