Integration of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Industries Helps Farmers Increase Income and Become Prosperous
Recently, at the sixth national training class for directors of major agricultural, livestock and fishery counties, held by the Management Cadre College of the Ministry of Agriculture, and the class for national leisure agriculture and rural tourism demonstration counties, how to develop leisure agriculture, promote the transformation of the agricultural industry and increase farmers' income became the focus of discussion. The trainees agreed that leisure agriculture has the functions of expanding agricultural functions, extending the agricultural industry chain, realizing the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and driving farmers' income growth, and is a sunrise industry with broad prospects for China's rural areas in the future.
In this regard, the typical experience of Jixi County, Anhui Province, in developing a honey industrial park was recognized by everyone. Zhou Daoqing, Party secretary of the Jixi County Agricultural Committee, said: “The industrial park is based on beekeeping and honey production, develops the deep processing industry for honey, and then uses this to drive sightseeing tourism at the honey culture park, forming a deep integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.” The “Apple Town” built by Yiyuan County, Shandong Province, and the “Navel Orange Picking Garden” built by Wusheng County, Sichuan Province, both have similar industrial characteristics.
“Scientific development, planning first.” This is the consensus unanimously reached by the directors. Liu Jiaowu, director of the Yiyuan County Agriculture Bureau in Shandong Province, said: “When planning an industry, we must establish the concept and approach of integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.” Regarding the question of “who will plan and how to plan,” everyone believed that a professional planning team must be hired to do it, and that it must be scientific planning based on agriculture. “What many places do now is only tourism planning rather than agricultural planning. I once went to a county for research and found that, for sightseeing, they planted large numbers of sunflowers along the roadside. It was very beautiful, but once the sunflowers were planted, that was the end of it.” said Dr. Li Jian of the Planning and Design Research Institute of the Ministry of Agriculture. “When the agricultural department makes a leisure agriculture plan, it must include links such as agricultural product processing, circulation and sales. Only then is it integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.”
How can widespread increases in farmers' income be realized and a mechanism for sharing benefits between leisure agriculture enterprises and farmers be established? Various places introduced some experience based on their own practices.
One way is, in the process of developing leisure agriculture, to raise the added value of local agricultural products through brand management. For example, in the overall planning of a leisure demonstration area, Jiangning District of Jiangsu Province invested fiscal funds to help farmers renovate and upgrade the quality of their homes. Villagers can use their homes for business operations, and at the same time local agricultural products are uniformly packaged and branded, increasing the added value of agricultural products.
Having farmers participate in leisure agriculture operations through shareholding is an important exploration in establishing a benefit-sharing mechanism between farmers and leisure agriculture enterprises. Guo Ben, deputy director of the Yuanjiacun Investment Management Company in Shaanxi Province, introduced the local exploration in this regard. Yuanjiacun's leisure agriculture is operated by the village investment management company, and villagers can obtain share dividends by contributing land or capital as shares. In addition, villagers can also receive subsidies provided by the company. Huang Xuegang, director of the Xingyi City Agriculture and Poverty Alleviation Development Bureau in Guizhou Province, suggested that government support funds for leisure agriculture be injected into leisure agriculture enterprises as villagers' collective shareholding funds, so that they participate in the company's profit dividends.