How can agricultural machinery cooperatives help China achieve full mechanization of crops
Recently, at the "Director's Discussion Hall" of the class for agricultural machinery directors on full mechanization of major crops during the national rotation training for directors of major agriculture, animal husbandry and fishery counties, participants unanimously agreed that under the current circumstances of inverted domestic and international agricultural product prices, large-scale migration of rural labor to cities, and declining arable land quality, it is necessary to accelerate the achievement of full mechanization of major crops in China.
How should the agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy be improved?
“Without the agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy, there would be no current level of agricultural mechanization in China, but this policy still needs improvement. The newly formulated machine purchase subsidy policy should be introduced before the peak period for farmers buying machines, and February is more suitable; each year, 10%-15% of the total machine purchase subsidy funds should be used for the construction of agricultural mechanization infrastructure and operational subsidies for key links in the mechanization of major crops.” suggested Zhou Shengli, director of the Agricultural Mechanization Service Center of Xiushan County, Chongqing. “Targeted differentiated subsidies should be carried out according to the actual agricultural development of each region; for example, Inner Mongolia should focus on subsidizing supporting machinery for the full mechanization of potatoes.” added Xing Jiangfeng, deputy director of the Agricultural Machinery Bureau of Chagu Front Banner, Inner Mongolia.
Li Sheshan, director of the Agricultural Machinery Extension Station of Liangzhou District, Wuwei City, Gansu Province, believes that the policy direction can shift from purchase subsidies to discounted loans, further stimulating market vitality. “This year, Fujian took the lead nationwide in piloting market-oriented reform of agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, canceling pre-approval links such as promotion appraisal of subsidized products and inclusion in the catalog of agricultural machinery products supported for promotion, and implementing a registration system for agricultural machinery subsidized products.” introduced Xu Zhijian, deputy director of the Agricultural Machinery Management Station of Pucheng County, Fujian Province. This is an ice-breaking move to eliminate the problem of artificially high agricultural machinery prices caused by the machine purchase subsidy policy through market means.
How should land be operated on a large scale and in a scientific manner?
“Full mechanization cannot be separated from large-scale contiguous land. But now the cost of land transfer is too high, with one mu of land asking for 1200 yuan, which ordinary agricultural machinery cooperatives or large grain growers can hardly bear. This is a key constraining factor for full mechanization. Farmers should be encouraged to contribute land as shares, which can both reduce land rent and protect farmers' own interests, increasing farmers' enthusiasm.” said Qiu Chengwen, chief of the Agricultural Machinery Management Section of the Agricultural Machinery Bureau of Guanghan City, Sichuan Province.
How large a scale of land transfer is appropriate? Deng Yuzheng, director of the Agricultural Machinery Bureau of Hengyang County, Hunan Province, believes: “First, it should be judged from the perspective of giving play to mechanical efficiency. 300 mu is most appropriate. This scale can maximize the effectiveness of one large tractor, one rice transplanter, and one harvester.”
“Our city began promoting deep plowing and deep loosening in 2011. Everyone says this technology can save water and increase yields, but no one has specially measured how much yield can actually be increased by deep plowing or not, or deep loosening or not, so farmers do not recognize it. However, during the three consecutive years of drought from 2012 to 2014, the yield increase effect on land that had undergone deep plowing and deep loosening was very obvious. This year, more than 100 people signed up at the agricultural machinery bureau to buy deep loosening machines. Therefore, promoting scientific farming techniques such as deep plowing and deep loosening and giving the public practical demonstrations is very important; it cannot be forcibly promoted.” said Nie Zhaoyi, deputy director of the Agricultural Machinery Bureau of Pingqiao District, Xinyang City, Henan Province.
How can agricultural machinery cooperatives develop and grow stronger?
“Agricultural machinery cooperatives require large investment, and the machinery all serves grain production. This can effectively avoid the problem of non-grain production in large-scale land management. The state should support the development of agricultural machinery cooperatives from the height of top-level design.” said Zheng Hongyao, director of the Agricultural Machinery Bureau of Wuyang County, Henan Province.
Wang Zhonglin, director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Agricultural Commission, who gave a keynote report at the training class, introduced the Renfa Modern Agricultural Machinery Professional Cooperative in Keshan County: “This cooperative has explored a model of 'taking land membership as the core, modern agricultural machinery as the carrier, and production cooperation as the link,' adhering to distribution mainly based on land contributed to the cooperative, evenly distributing the returns from state investment to members, including the cooperative's public reserve fund in individual accounts to clarify property, and a one-person-one-vote voting system, fully safeguarding members' democratic rights. This solved both the agricultural problem and the farmer problem, both the interest problem and the democracy problem.” Renfa Cooperative pointed out a path for the development and growth of agricultural machinery cooperatives.
“Because the land, houses, equipment and other assets owned by agricultural machinery cooperatives cannot be set as collateral, financing difficulty has become a major problem affecting the development of agricultural machinery cooperatives. The modern agricultural development company in our district provides loan guarantees in the company's name for subordinate agricultural machinery cooperatives, thereby solving this problem.” said Jiang Shengbin of the Agricultural Committee of Dazu District, Chongqing.
In the full mechanization of crops in China, agricultural machinery cooperatives, as the implementing entities, should make full use of machinery in all links of modern agricultural production to carry out large-scale and scientific management of land. However, full mechanization of crops is a systematic project involving many aspects such as the construction of machine farming roads and the selection and breeding of improved varieties. This requires supporting measures to advance in step, accelerating the achievement of full mechanization of crops, and thereby realizing the modernization of China's agriculture.