How can leisure agriculture break boundaries and achieve cross-sector cooperation?
Leisure agriculture is an instinctive, wise and inevitable journey of umbilical blood root-seeking, a behavior of self-adjustment and a cycle of supply-demand misalignment after humanity moved from an agricultural society into an industrial society and an information society.
In today's society, the world is flat and relationships are broad. On the premise that the marketing of a single specific product (point) follows the law of diminishing marginal returns, the industrial operation chain (line) can trace back to the upper end and extend to the lower end, the industrial sector circle (plane) can unite horizontally and link vertically, and the industrial complex can circulate internally and integrate externally. This is the theoretical foundation of boundless leisure agriculture.
The practice and exploration of boundless leisure agriculture is a practical application of the Scientific Outlook on Development and an objective reflection of the new normal economy. It requires us to re-recognize the relationship between humanity and agriculture, re-recognize the connotation and extension of leisure agriculture, re-recognize the complexity and flexibility of natural systems and social systems, re-recognize the penetration and adaptability of economic activities and social activities, and re-recognize the subversive power and influence of technological innovation and cultural creativity. Boundless leisure agriculture is mainly reflected in the following six aspects:
1. No boundary between agriculture and tourism
Once, leisure agriculture was merely a small branch of the tourism product system, but most tourist attractions in our country are located in rural areas. Leisure agriculture has not only launched a counter-encirclement but also penetrated into scenic areas, becoming one of the ways for traditional scenic areas to expand capacity, improve quality and transform and upgrade. Combining agriculture with tourism, strengthening both agriculture and tourism together, promoting tourism through agriculture, driving agriculture through tourism, with tourism within agriculture and agriculture within tourism, is becoming the development trend of leisure agriculture and rural tourism. In addition, a new term will soon be born, and that is scenic area agriculture. Once the concept of scenic area agriculture becomes popular, it will once again confirm the absence of boundaries between agriculture and tourism.
2. No boundary between agriculture and leisure
Leisure agriculture integrates capital, technology, talent and modern business concepts. It is the vanguard, incubator, experimental field and promotion station of agricultural modernization, and the universal glue, adsorbent and storage bag of other agricultural models and forms. It can be said that all advanced agricultural technologies and agricultural models can be applied and displayed based on the carrier of leisure agriculture without affecting the process of agricultural production. To this day, agriculture itself has also subdivided and derived a large number of business formats, models and types. A rough count includes traditional agriculture, characteristic agriculture, high-efficiency agriculture, modern agriculture, petroleum agriculture, facility agriculture, organic agriculture, circular agriculture, biological agriculture, leisure agriculture, urban agriculture, creative agriculture, brand agriculture, three-dimensional agriculture, intensive agriculture, two-oriented agriculture, contract agriculture, digital agriculture, precision agriculture, water-saving agriculture, irrigation agriculture, mountain agriculture, dryland agriculture, balcony agriculture, courtyard agriculture, dike-pond agriculture, space agriculture, marine agriculture, saline-alkali agriculture, desert agriculture, maternal agriculture, low-carbon agriculture, green agriculture, blue agriculture, black agriculture, white agriculture, purple agriculture, colorful agriculture, aromatic agriculture, selenium-enriched agriculture, maternal and infant agriculture, carbon sink agriculture, foreign-exchange-earning agriculture, futures agriculture, scaled agriculture, capital agriculture, crowdfunding agriculture, micro agriculture, virtual agriculture, etc. Although many concepts overlap or even repeat one another, they are all definitions, demands and explorations of agricultural characteristics. The development of leisure agriculture has further stimulated innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in the agricultural field, and more agricultural concepts or conceptual agricultures will emerge. Whether you know it or not, like it or not, oppose it or not, this is inevitability and trend.
3. No boundary between city and countryside
If we rigidly set the precondition of leisure agriculture as the countryside, then related agricultural phenomena occurring in cities can only be called sub-leisure agriculture, quasi-leisure agriculture or imitation leisure agriculture, such as rooftop agriculture and rooftop gardens in cities, balcony agriculture and aquaponic fish-vegetable tanks in households, vertical agriculture on building exteriors, artistic agriculture in shopping malls, plant screens in offices, display agriculture in famous restaurants, landscape agriculture in parks, a corner of parent-child agriculture in kindergartens, agricultural science popularization ecological gardens in primary and secondary school campuses, horticultural therapy bases in nursing homes, and also rural style in food streets, agricultural carnival festivals in city squares, or even just parent-child fish catching in inflatable pools in city parks, a small pot of fruits and vegetables on the tea table in a hotel room, and even a mini plant pendant on the keychain of a trendy young person in the city. All of these fully demonstrate our pursuit of agriculture, greenness and health, and are also an awakening of collective consciousness. Among these, some products and technologies are supplied directly by leisure farms, while others are inspired or influenced by leisure agriculture. From the perspective of overall social development, while vigorously developing rural leisure agriculture, we should welcome agriculture into the city and encourage the growth and popularization of the aforementioned sub-leisure agriculture, quasi-leisure agriculture and imitation leisure agriculture. The level of leisure agriculture development in a place is not only measured by how many star-rated farms there are, but also by whether the city can truly be built into a pastoral city rather than a forest of cement and steel. We should use leisure agriculture as a reference or guide to turn education into an ecological, interesting and creative paradise for learning and growth, guide tourism real estate toward manors, elderly care real estate toward villages and industrial and commercial real estate toward ecology, and build as a whole a beautiful, harmonious, happy and livable county-level city with a slow pace of life, full of personality and characteristics, and brimming with creativity and vitality.
4. No boundary between resources and elements
On the basis of the six elements of tourism - food, accommodation, transportation, travel, shopping and entertainment - leisure agriculture adds culture, education, experience, wellness, landscape, cultivation and breeding, and processing. Leisure agriculture resources include everything from astronomy above to geography below, and all agricultural production, farm life, rural ecology, farmers' skills and farming culture in agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline production and fisheries, and can flexibly absorb all fashionable popular culture and urban resource elements. Leisure agriculture is also the only agricultural form that relies on resource advantages to attract various advanced urban elements to continuously flow to rural areas, and it has a long-term impact on urban-rural interaction and exchange, especially the construction of a new countryside. Precisely because of this, when conducting surveys of leisure agriculture resources, the original methods and scope of tourism resource surveys will be broken through. In planning and analysis, deeper sorting will be done from the three aspects of space, time and interpersonal relations. First, effective linkage and coordinated protection among mountains, water, fields, gardens, roads, towns, villages, dwellings and scenic areas; second, product configuration optimization and business strategy adjustment for different time periods and time nodes such as ancient and modern times, spring, summer, autumn and winter, day and night, busy and slack farming seasons, statutory holidays, and the 24 solar terms; third, segmentation and selection of different source markets by gender and age, distance and elevation, and interests and hobbies.
5. No boundary between models and business formats
In terms of industrial forms, these include leisure agriculture, leisure fisheries, leisure ranches, leisure forest farms, leisure orchards, leisure tea gardens, leisure vegetable gardens, leisure flower gardens, exhibition and experience bases of leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization, and logistics support bases of enterprises and institutions. In terms of regional distribution, these include the urban creative experience type, suburban leisure vacation type, tourist attraction support type, agricultural park support type, new countryside construction demonstration type, ethnic village cultural inheritance type, mountain forest understory comprehensive development type, lake area wetland protection and utilization type, reservoir area water source ecological conservation type, mining area comprehensive treatment and restoration type, and old revolutionary base area industrial poverty alleviation-driven type. In terms of development models, these include the small family farm type, mini crowdfunding experience type, mass leisure and amusement type, high-end wellness vacation type, regional pillar industry extension type, special theme culture in-depth development type, specific source market docking type, community-supported agriculture order type, farmers' cooperative organization binding type, and brand farm chain type. In terms of theme positioning, there are agricultural industry themes, characteristic industry themes, sports and fitness themes, wellness vacation themes, business leisure themes, fun education themes, science popularization study tour themes, social sciences and humanities themes, cultural experience themes, art exhibition themes, novel and individual themes, etc. It can be said that models and types are diverse, scales vary, and positioning themes differ. In terms of business formats, many traditional business models and service formats will be combined with leisure agriculture, such as farming and reading academies, wellness apartments, warehouse-style supermarkets, high-end kindergartens, rural bars, international youth hostels, logistics bases, corporate training bases, corporate headquarters manors, intangible cultural heritage inheritance and protection centers, community owner manors, rural wedding photography bases, film and television culture shooting bases, citizens' holiday universities, college student entrepreneurship practice bases, farmers' entrepreneurship parks, grid farms, pet training centers, folk collection exhibition centers, national defense education and training bases, and public welfare association activity bases. These new business formats have enriched the product system of leisure agriculture and accelerated the integration of leisure agriculture with social resources.
6. No boundary between functions and roles
What sister plants is not vegetables, but loneliness (seclusion function); what sister plants is not vegetables, but hope (inspiration function); what sister plants is not vegetables, but cause and effect (Zen meditation function); what brother plants is not trees, but love (commemoration function); what brother plants is not trees, but a passbook (investment function); what brother plants is not trees, but green charm (environmental protection function). From the online Happy Farm to the real Happy Farm, from many people's cafe to many people's farm, from the Angry Birds game to the Angry Birds theme park, from Where Are We Going, Dad? to Dad Goes to the Farm, from A Bite of China to a bite of the farm, leisure agriculture has fully leveraged its ability to absorb and integrate. As national and local departments at all levels increase their support and guidance for leisure agriculture, and as supporting industries and supporting services for leisure agriculture become increasingly complete and mature, leisure agriculture will certainly develop into a grand agricultural garden, a grand educational classroom, an ecological reception hall, a grand gathering base camp, a food carnival, a specialty product shopping village, a new frontier for science popularization, and a new carrier for art, promoting the integrated development of city and countryside, tradition and fashion, technology and art, culture and creativity, and industry and platforms.
In summary, leisure agriculture demonstrations have standards but no boundaries; have benchmarks but no uniformity; have time periods but no end. Boundless leisure agriculture: only with cognition is there direction; only with cognition can there be good practice; only with cognition can it be called exploration.