Agricultural modernization without passion is a disaster; agriculture has nothing to do with mechanization
The annual “No. 1 Document” has been issued, and people across the country have once again begun heatedly discussing agriculture.
Such a scene plays out once every year at this time. If I remember correctly, usually not long after the “Two Sessions,” the heated discussion about agriculture gradually cools down, and then disappears. To describe this phenomenon with an idiom, it is a tiger's head and a snake's tail - a strong start and a weak finish.
You can tell, I am not here to sing praises.
Along with the annual spring agricultural drama——the “No. 1 Document”——there is another phenomenon: articles in the major media with titles like “The opportunity for agriculture has arrived,” “The next investment hotspot is agriculture,” “Agriculture is entering a golden age,” and so on. You will notice: two years ago there were such articles, two years later there are such articles, and two years before that there were also such articles, and four years before that there were still such articles…… These articles are well-reasoned and well-supported, with keen observation and policy insight. But after reading too many of them, one cannot help but suddenly feel puzzled: has the opportunity for agriculture actually arrived or not?
When will it come?
Agriculture has nothing to do with opportunity
Ten years ago, when I first began working in rural policy research, the country had just started proposing new rural construction. For a while, I felt quite pumped up, and was very keen on preaching “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived.” When people learned that I worked on rural affairs, they would often ask me whether there were great development opportunities in rural areas now. My answer not only told them yes, but also vividly described all the opportunities in agriculture. As for things like “ten consecutive years of No. 1 Documents,” I would bring them up and pour them into others too. Quite a few people were swayed by me until they were dizzy and went into agriculture. In the days that followed, on the one hand I continued this kind of persuasion, and on the other hand I began answering the problems encountered in agricultural production and operation complained about by those who had been persuaded into agriculture years earlier. Of course, answering these questions was also very concise: agriculture is an industry with a long cycle and slow returns; it cannot be achieved overnight, and one should not approach agriculture with a mentality of rushing for quick success. Without a doubt, such an answer was a standard answer acceptable to both sides, and no one ever questioned it.
⟦NL> But later I gradually discovered that the problems encountered by those who entered agriculture for all kinds of reasons hoping to develop were not only because of agriculture's own long cycle and slow returns, nor only because of a failure to grasp national agricultural policy accurately. Some people plunged into a certain agricultural project, invested tens of millions, and spent more than ten years, yet still returned disappointed. Could it be said that more than ten years is not long enough? Thinking carefully about the answer “long cycle and slow returns,” it is actually an extremely irresponsible piece of nonsense——apart from stock speculation and a few other possibilities of getting rich overnight, which industries are achieved overnight? Thinking carefully about why agriculture looks beautiful but is hard to do, one discovers: “beautiful” is only in comparison with thirty or forty years ago; it is a macro-level imagination or inference, with a strong flavor of the “Chinese Dream”; “hard” is what you find after plunging in——it is very skinny, very cruel. To put it plainly, the core reason agriculture struggles is that the central government's agricultural policy is always loud thunder but little rain.
Just think: in recent years the central government has issued many policies supporting and benefiting agriculture, but how many have truly been implemented at the grassroots level?
It has already been two or three years since agriculture stopped being my “primary industry,” so I no longer have the former focus and entanglement. But my roots are in the countryside, and sometimes I still “accidentally” see articles online or on WeChat saying “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived.” By rights, I should turn a deaf ear to such “the wolf is coming” articles. But two or three years have passed, and Chinese people have placed too many more expectations on agriculture, so I cannot help clicking in to take a look. Although the articles are endlessly renewed in style, their viewpoints are basically the same old tune——apart from policy, still policy!
By ordinary logic, the proposition “has the opportunity for agriculture arrived or not” seems to pose no problem. Because for any industry or any project, there is always a best time to enter: the automobile manufacturing industry is like this, the IT industry is like this, and the cultural industry is likewise like this. What is strange is that for agriculture, the slogan “the opportunity has arrived” has actually been shouted for more than ten years! By ordinary logic, people with different industry backgrounds should see problems with different visions and angles, and the conclusions they reach should differ; only that would be normal. Articles like “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived” are basically all written by people outside agricultural circles. Because for people inside agricultural circles, there is no question of discussing opportunity; whether there is opportunity or not, what must be done still has to be done. But what is strange is that when people from different backgrounds talk about agriculture, their eyes all turn in unison toward policy, and the answers seem highly unified, yet the results are always poles apart! Why? What is even more puzzling is that “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived” has been shouted for more than ten years, and it seems no one has seriously interpreted it: is it that agriculture has consistently had one opportunity for more than ten years? Or that agriculture's opportunities have been continuously arriving for more than ten years? Or that agriculture's opportunity is about to arrive after more than ten years?
Honestly, I understand it less and less.
Until last month, after going back to my hometown to organize a group purchase of Ningxia Tan sheep, I finally found the answer to whether “the opportunity for agriculture” has arrived. This thought came from——when I carried the resentment brought from the agriculture bureau and complained to the county magistrate about the government's inaction on agriculture, a thought suddenly flashed in my mind: Am I right? My brothers and sisters, and my father's generation and grandfather's generation, did they not also carry on doing agriculture with peace of mind without government support? Why do I complain when there is no government support? Is my reason for doing agriculture merely to obtain government support?
On the bus from the county seat to Yinchuan, and on the plane from Yinchuan to Beijing, this question kept lingering in my mind. I finally figured it out: agriculture has nothing to do with opportunity or no opportunity; it is only a matter of whether it suits you. Agriculture belongs only to people with passion.
Opportunism is the greatest harm to agriculture
Agriculture is different from computers, different from automobiles, different from film, television, and antique collecting. In addition to its attribute as a commodity, it also bears the fundamental sustenance of life. People can go without wearing a watch, can go without using a computer, and can even go without clothes, but they cannot go without eating! Precisely because agriculture carries and sustains life, choosing to engage in agriculture means one must accept this responsibility by default, with no way to shirk it. However, in China today, when people discuss the development opportunities of agriculture, they discuss only its economic attribute and commodity attribute, while stripping away the special mission agriculture carries. Although there are also many who look forward to the “opportunity” of organic agriculture from the perspective of food safety, the so-called opportunity has arrived, put more plainly, means the opportunity to make money has arrived. And once agriculture takes making money as its fundamental purpose, that is the root cause of the chaos in Chinese agriculture.
Now, setting the record straight, looking back, it is not hard to understand the confusing phenomenon of “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived” every year. Because some people engage in the agricultural industry, while some are merely speculating to make money; some produce food, while some treat food only as a commodity. Although all are “agriculture,” the discussion context is different, the understanding of “opportunity” is different, and the outcome is therefore different. But returning to the true nature of agriculture, since people must eat every day, the opportunity for agriculture has always existed. It will never become outdated like a 386 computer or a BP pager, nor will opportunity come only because of a “No. 1 Document” or the introduction of a certain policy. “Whether you see me or not, I am there, neither sad nor glad; whether you love me or not, love is there, neither increasing nor decreasing.” If there is no passion, after failing to grasp opportunity you will be disappointed, will get angry, will complain. Without passion, if you grasp opportunity, for agriculture it is not construction, but destruction or even disaster: first, it empties out policy, plunders the welfare that should belong to farmers, and leads to pure opportunism; second, it destroys agriculture's own ecological balance and plunges agriculture itself into a vicious cycle of seeking quick success and instant benefit; third, it leads to grain and food safety issues, making everyone feel insecure.
First, policy. Think carefully: so-called articles like “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived” refer to nothing more than the development opportunities brought by the central government's agricultural policy. If when people say the opportunity for real estate has arrived, or the opportunity for new energy has arrived, they mostly mean convenience in policy and reductions or exemptions in taxes, then by comparison, agriculture's policy support is real gold and silver paid directly into accounts. Precisely because it is real gold and silver, it has become the Tang Monk's flesh for a group of opportunists, and everyone wants to take a bite. As early as 2005 I participated in several research topics on rural cooperative economy. Theoretically, Chinese agriculture really did need such organizations, so I thought “the opportunity has arrived,” and took the lead in establishing a cooperative in my hometown, beginning my career as an agricultural entrepreneur. But after the Law of the People's Republic of China on Specialized Farmers Cooperatives was promulgated in 2007, especially when the media talked endlessly about the “enterprise + cooperative organization + farmer” model, and when governments at all levels vigorously “cultivated” their own “leading enterprises,” I began to have an ominous premonition that in this policy-driven “industrial chain,” farmers would inevitably be reduced to a stepping stone for others and would not receive the slightest benefit! In fact, I once made a rough count: during 2008 and 2009 alone, the documents on various agricultural support and benefit projects from central ministries and commissions that I could obtain numbered more than 20. But how much of this money truly subsidized farmers needs no answer. A classmate working in an agriculture-related institution of the central government once criticized my practice of establishing my own cooperative and personally farming the land. He did not understand why I always chose to make money by farming. Their mode of operation is: in the second half of each year, near year's end, when various departments begin successively formulating, issuing, and applying for the next year's agricultural support projects, they will also one by one convene various “leading enterprises” for “closed-door meetings” at resorts. According to policy requirements, they “tailor-make” application plans. Then they follow the rules and “catch all in one net” the next year's funds! When I was conducting research in a certain place, the mayor, in order to prove that the central agricultural policy had been implemented thoroughly and that the local government's support was strong, pointed to a city-level “leading enterprise” boss present and said that enterprises like theirs only needed to switch on their machines once a year to obtain tens of millions in project funds. That remark hit the nail on the head——there are so many enterprises that can easily obtain policy funds by “switching on their machines once a year”! What was originally agricultural benefit funding has been seized by those who spotted that “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived.” And those who did not seize it can only receive the reply that “agriculture is an industry with a long cycle and slow returns,” and begin to complain; or else from then on embark on a stumbling path of cultivation. And in this bustling, fiery heated discussion of “the opportunity for agriculture has arrived,” where are the farmers?