Integration of agriculture with secondary and tertiary industries faces new challenges and needs new solutions
When people mention agriculture, the first thing they think of is the process from planting to harvest. In Funing County, Hebei Province, this notion is being changed. Located in Houjie Village, Qiangezhuang Management District, Funing County, the “Fine Wine Aroma” Modern Agriculture Demonstration Zone has built multiple bases for quality wine grape cultivation, table grape picking, wine brewing and storage, and sightseeing around high-end wine brewing, storage, tasting and sightseeing, driving 2422 surrounding farming households to engage in wine grape cultivation, with average household income increasing by 17,000 yuan. “Our vineyard is the primary production workshop, and at the same time we can obtain due returns from production, processing and distribution.” said villager Zhou Xing'an.
Similar to Funing County's approach, across the country, the practice of integrating agriculture with the secondary and tertiary industries is blossoming everywhere. In suburban areas, sightseeing agriculture, leisure agriculture and urban agriculture are developed; in developed areas, information agriculture, facility agriculture and factory agriculture are developed; in major agricultural product production areas, high-end value-added agriculture is developed, agricultural product processing bases are established, and direct agricultural product sales outlets are set up. This year's No. 1 Central Document proposed for the first time “promoting the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas.” During the Two Sessions, representatives and committee members put forward opinions and suggestions on how to promote the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries.
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Modern agriculture has multiple business formats
“When we used to talk about an integrated chain of production, supply and marketing, it was mainly aimed at bulk agricultural products. To adapt to the development of the new era and new trends, the connotation and extension of the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries today must be much broader. For example, rural tourism and agriculture-related e-commerce did not exist in the past.” said Wang Hongling, representative and deputy director of the Hubei Provincial Department of Agriculture. Shortly after the No. 1 Central Document was issued, the Ministry of Agriculture printed and distributed the Guiding Opinions on Further Adjusting and Optimizing the Agricultural Structure, working hard not only on “internal optimization” but also on “internal-external linkage,” and proposing to “strengthen the primary industry, optimize the secondary industry and invigorate the tertiary industry.” In “optimizing the secondary industry,” it is necessary to “extend the industrial chain, build the supply chain, form a full industrial chain, and promote the integrated interaction of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries”; in “invigorating the tertiary industry,” it is necessary to expand agriculture's multifunctionality and “vigorously tap rural cultural resources and strengthen the creative design of agricultural products, farming landscapes and local culture.” Through these arrangements, farmers can obtain more returns from the value-added of the industrial chain.
“Modern agriculture indeed has multiple business formats. It can develop agritainment, picking, and agricultural science popularization. This is a way to increase farmers' income. Agriculture cannot merely focus on growing grain. The secondary industry processing must be connected, and tertiary industry circulation must keep up, including leisure sightseeing services, information services and so on, all of which must be developed.” said Wu Peiliang, representative and director of the Jiangsu Provincial Agricultural Commission. Jiangsu started early in linking the primary industry with the secondary and tertiary industries. Jiangsu proposed that every major agricultural county should carry out the “three ones” project: first, an agricultural science and technology demonstration park to accelerate the transformation of agricultural science and technology; second, a concentrated agricultural product processing zone, where, like industrial development zones, agricultural product processing enterprises all gather in the agricultural product processing zone, making it convenient to unify infrastructure construction and pollution treatment; third, agricultural product wholesale markets, including tangible markets and intangible markets. In particular, e-commerce for agricultural products has been promoted. The whole province has already built several e-commerce industrial parks, and has also vigorously developed leisure sightseeing agriculture and urban agriculture.
There are various development paths and realization forms for the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas. In the view of Ma Xiaohe, vice president of the Academy of Macroeconomic Research of the National Development and Reform Commission, at present there are four forms of integrated development of agriculture with the secondary and tertiary industries across the country: first, integration through internal industrial consolidation within agriculture, such as combining planting and breeding; second, integration through extension of the agricultural industrial chain, that is, taking agriculture as the center and extending the chain forward and backward, linking the supply of seeds, pesticides and fertilizers with agricultural production, or linking agricultural product processing and sales with agricultural product production, or establishing an integrated chain of agricultural production, supply and marketing; third, integration through cross-type fusion of agriculture with other industries, such as the integration of agriculture with culture and tourism; fourth, integration through the penetration of advanced factor technologies into agriculture, such as the rapid promotion and application of information technology, which both blurs the boundaries between agriculture and the secondary and tertiary industries and greatly shortens the distance between supply and demand sides, making online marketing, online leasing and trusteeship possible.
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Industrial integration drives quality improvement and efficiency enhancement
Judging from domestic development practice in recent years, the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas has achieved remarkable results: the agricultural industrial chain has been extended, rural industrial growth points have increased, agricultural functions have been broadened, agricultural added value has increased, rural infrastructure has become interconnected, and farmers' income has also increased.
Chen Xiwen, member of the Central Rural Work Leading Group and director of its office, believes that China's agricultural resources are, after all, limited, and for rural areas, agriculture and farmers, merely providing primary agricultural products is still not enough. The integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries not only provides primary agricultural products, but also enables deep processing, extends the industrial chain and increases its value. At the same time, various service industries can also be developed, such as tourism and agritainment, increasing farmers' income through various channels. Rural farmers across the country are already actively working in this direction.
Chen Xiwen gave the example of rural tourism. In recent years, rural tourism has developed very rapidly. At present, there are 2 million agritainment businesses nationwide and more than 100,000 characteristic villages and towns. Last year, the number of tourists visiting rural areas for rural tourism was 1.2 billion person-times, providing farmers with tourism income of 320 billion yuan and helping 33 million farmers become better off. People not only eat, stay and consume agricultural products in the countryside, but also take away some processed finished products.
Deng Xiuxin, representative and president of Huazhong Agricultural University, used fruit to illustrate the value-added process of agricultural products. For example, a jin of apples is bought at the orchard for 2 yuan. After simple packaging and grading at a processing plant, the price is about 2.6 yuan, an increase of 30 percent. On the market, the selling price is about 8 to 10 yuan. He said that the money earned from the planting stage is very little, only about 10 percent of the final price, and it is earned over a year, but at the processing plant, after grading and washing, it becomes 2.6 yuan in about an hour. If fruit that has undergone primary processing is brought in, with a brand and transportation, and sold directly to supermarkets, it becomes 8 yuan. The profit space of the tertiary industry is very large. To make money from agriculture, one must build the entire chain from planting to the dining table.
“Agriculture should develop in a diversified way, shifting from purely field crops to planting cash crops, and from single agricultural planting to developing high-value-added agricultural industries.” said Song Furu, representative and Party branch secretary of Dongjie Village, Guangfu Town, Hebei Province. “In Dongjie Village, we used local resource advantages and brought into play the cultural characteristics of Guangfu Ancient City and Tai Chi culture to build the Lotus Grand View Garden and the Hundred Flowers Garden, and hold an ice sculpture festival every winter. The pond that was originally only used as a fish pond has been turned into a fishery leisure center. The annual ice sculpture festival brings more than 10 million yuan in income to our village collective. The fishery leisure center has increased the output value per mu of the fish pond from 2000 yuan per year to 5000 yuan now. Through agriculture 'linking secondary and tertiary industries,' land returns have multiplied.”