How to Do a Good Job of Subtraction and Multiplication in Rural Entrepreneurship

Since the 1990s, as the “entrepreneurial wave” gradually emerged, the issue of farmers' entrepreneurship began to attract increasing attention. From the rise of township enterprises, to farmers going out to work, to returning home to start businesses, all of this has demonstrated the creativity and pioneering spirit of farmers' entrepreneurship. At present, our country's economy has entered a new normal, with relatively slowing economic growth and increasing employment pressure, and farmers, especially migrant workers, are facing problems such as slowing income growth; on the other hand, the construction of new urbanization is continuously accelerating, providing broader development space for the rural labor force. Against this background, encouraging farmers to start businesses is not only a need for promoting institutional reform and easing employment pressure, but also an inevitable requirement for transforming a traditional economy into an entrepreneurial economy, narrowing the urban-rural gap, and building a new countryside. According to statistics, among the army of rural entrepreneurs, 65% are rural youth born after 1980, and in 2018 this proportion will exceed 70%, so rural youth will become the “main force” of mass entrepreneurship under the economic new normal.

The “new normal” means that our country's economy has begun to shift from factor-driven and investment-driven to innovation-driven, and farmers will face new changes and new challenges in labor employment, wage income, skill improvement, and other aspects. This requires that, while the government does “subtraction” by streamlining administration and delegating power, it also relies on mass entrepreneurship to stimulate the “multiplication” of farmers' entrepreneurial enthusiasm, using entrepreneurship to drive employment, and through various measures enabling farmers, especially returning migrant workers, to make their entrepreneurial dreams continually blossom and bear fruit.

“Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood, and entrepreneurship is the source of prosperity.” We must change our concepts, realize entrepreneurial employment for farmers, persist in promoting both employment and entrepreneurship, and while actively guiding farmers to go out to work and increasing wage income, vigorously encourage farmers who remain in rural areas to start businesses independently in the agricultural field, create wealth through the means of production they themselves control, and increase the proportion of asset income in farmers' income. For a long time, people have always equated labor transfer with labor export, focusing only on simple labor export and believing that farmers are incapable of showing their talents in the field of entrepreneurship. At the present stage, however, the reality of rural labor transfer in our country objectively requires us to re-examine the issue of farmers' employment: rural labor transfer employment cannot remain merely at the level of going out to work and providing labor services; it should also emphasize entrepreneurial employment, local entrepreneurship in place, and entrepreneurship in the agricultural field, and promote farmers' proactive entrepreneurship by strengthening the cultivation of their market awareness and entrepreneurial awareness.

Governments at all levels should follow the policy of “respecting entrepreneurship, guiding according to circumstances, actively supporting, and improving services” to support farmers' entrepreneurship. By carrying out evaluations such as “Entrepreneurship Star,” they should commend advanced entrepreneurial models, fully give play to the demonstrative and driving role of successful entrepreneurs, and form a good social atmosphere of “thousands of troops charging into the market, thousands of households building great undertakings”; they should establish a policy support system for farmers' entrepreneurship, providing convenience for entrepreneurial farmers in areas such as tax and fee reductions and exemptions, tax rebates, education and training, project support, financial assistance, and selection of entrepreneurial sites; they should clarify the relevant responsibilities of functional departments at all levels, standardize government administrative behavior, and keep channels open for farmers to express their entrepreneurial needs; governments at all levels should also establish special funds to support farmers' entrepreneurship, open green channels for farmers' entrepreneurial loans, lower loan conditions and thresholds, and allow multiple loan pathways such as land use right mortgage loans, rural homestead mortgage loans, self-built housing mortgage loans, and mutual guarantee loans among entrepreneurs.

For a long time, there has been no clear standard or basis for investment in farmer entrepreneurship training, which is mainly based on farmer education and training. As a result, funding for farmer training has been seriously insufficient, infrastructure has been backward, project scale has been relatively small, subsidy standards have been low, and training quality has not been high. To ensure the long-term and stable development of farmer entrepreneurship cultivation work, the standards and basis for funding investment must be clearly defined. In addition, it is also necessary to explore and establish an incentive mechanism for farmer entrepreneurship cultivation, focus on cultivating rural practical talents who are young, have high cultural quality, and possess solid skills, encourage all sectors of society and enterprises to participate in cultivating rural practical technical talents, and gradually establish an investment mechanism combining government, enterprises, and farmers; formulate entrepreneurial talent standards and selection methods in light of actual conditions, deeply tap various local talents in rural areas such as “field scholars” and “local experts,” and establish and improve an evaluation index system for farmer entrepreneurial talent based mainly on production performance, promotion of agricultural production technology, and leading the masses to escape poverty and become wealthy.

Governments at all levels should formulate and implement various preferential policies to guide returning migrant workers with farming experience to start businesses, and provide them with support in finance, land, and other aspects; open special “green channels” for migrant workers returning home to start businesses, lower entrepreneurial thresholds, and simplify approval procedures; give priority to solving the land use problem for migrant workers returning home to start businesses, allow localities to offset construction land through rural collective land consolidation, and take out part of it as land for migrant workers returning home to start businesses; local governments may incorporate migrant worker entrepreneurship into regional economic and social development plans, and through administrative, economic, and legal means cultivate and guide returning entrepreneurial migrant workers to become the backbone force of modern agriculture; through various forms, do a good job of publicizing advanced models and advanced experience of migrant workers returning home to start businesses, vigorously carry forward the spirit of migrant workers returning home to start businesses, give play to the exemplary and demonstrative role of models, and create a good public opinion atmosphere.