Modern agriculture will take center stage: Vice Minister of Science and Technology Zhang Laiwu talks about the new normal
“The Chinese economy is undergoing profound changes, and we are once again standing at a new historical starting point. In the near future, modern agricultural parks, modern agricultural entrepreneurs, professional farmers, agricultural science and innovation investment…… these institutions that form communities of shared interest with agriculture and start businesses along the modern agricultural industry chain will become hot terms. Under the new normal, modern agriculture will take center stage!” said Zhang Laiwu, Vice Minister of Science and Technology, in a recent exclusive interview with a reporter from China Economic Weekly.
Modern agriculture is rising
Zhang Laiwu believes that the central government's determination to develop modern agriculture and stimulate rural development vitality is unprecedented.
“In the next 30 years, the biggest challenge facing our country is how to break the urban-rural dual structure.” Zhang Laiwu said. Over more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China's agriculture and rural areas have achieved world-renowned accomplishments, but due to historical reasons, the situation in which rural development lags behind cities has still not been fundamentally changed. The urban-rural dual structure still exists, the urban-rural development gap is still widening, and more and more agricultural population is leaving the land to make a living in cities and towns, causing rural desolation and a shortage of labor. “Only by developing modern agriculture can we gather industries, thereby gather population, narrow the urban-rural gap, and break the urban-rural dual structure.” Zhang Laiwu believes that modern agriculture is the golden key to solving the “three rural issues” of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers.
Zhang Laiwu believes that the traditional household-based agricultural operation model is difficult to sustain, and agriculture is increasingly reduced to a weak industry with high input and slow returns; industrialization and urbanization are competing with agriculture for resources such as labor and land; and increasing grain production faces the problem of insufficient capacity and willingness to invest in agriculture. Therefore, changing the organizational and operational methods of agriculture and developing modern agriculture is a “hard bone” that our country must gnaw.
In addition, solving food safety problems is also inseparable from modern agriculture. Traditional agriculture is a “small peasant economy” characterized by small-scale production, extensive management, small scale, and backward technical means, and it also has many regulatory blind spots. Therefore, in Zhang Laiwu's view, raising the level of food safety, and the path of upgrading from eating enough to eating well to eating healthily, is not only an improvement in the food safety environment, but also a major transformation in agricultural production methods. Actively supporting the development of large food groups and building whole-industry-chain enterprises from “field to table” also shows that social forces are promoting the development of modern agriculture.
“China's agricultural modernization lags behind developed countries in Europe and America by about 20 years, mainly reflected in four aspects: the scientific and technological level, financial capacity, informatization level, and management level of agricultural modernization, which has led to a series of problems such as a relatively low level of agricultural development, low farmer income, and serious resource waste.” Zhang Laiwu believes that the above four issues are the handles for solving China's agricultural problems and also the entry points for bringing traditional agriculture toward modern agriculture.
“From coordinated regional economic development to building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the 18th National Congress made urbanization a historic and strategic deployment, and proposed adhering to a development path of synchronized industrialization with Chinese characteristics, informatization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization. Multiple forces are joining hands to push modern agriculture upward.” Zhang Laiwu hopes that the whole society can pay attention to and promote agricultural modernization.
Finance leads the industrialization of modern agriculture
In 2008, Zhang Laiwu was transferred from vice chairman of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to vice minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology. As a doctor of economics and the first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology not from a natural scientist background, outside commentary said this revealed a signal——the central government hoped the Ministry of Science and Technology would pay more attention to the connection between science and technology and the economy, especially the importance of talent.
“For a long time, we have had a misunderstanding, believing that scientific and technological innovation is only a scientific and technological concept. In fact, it should be an economic concept, the realization of the market value of science and technology. Early scientific and technological innovation theory was linear, and our work was also arranged according to linear relationships. Today's scientific and technological innovation should be a triple helix integration theory, in which scientific discovery, technological invention, and market application interact and rise in a spiral.” In early 2012, Zhang Laiwu gave a speech at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, offering for the first time a new interpretation and systematic exposition of scientific and technological innovation.
Zhang Laiwu believes that we have advocated the concept of scientific and technological innovation for more than ten years, but the results so far are not ideal. The main reason is that there are deviations in the understanding of scientific and technological innovation theory, which has affected practice. Starting from the triple helix integration theory, Zhang Laiwu proposed that the main body of innovation is the market and entrepreneurs, not the government. The government must first carry out top-level design for innovation-driven development, stay close to the market and entrepreneurs, build a socialized service system, vigorously cultivate the market, and promote the gradual maturation of the market.
Zhang Laiwu said: “Modern agriculture is industrialized large-scale agriculture, an industrial system led by modern science and technology that integrates the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries of agriculture [editor's note: that is, not only growing crops (primary industry), but also engaging in the processing of agricultural products (secondary industry) and the sale of agricultural products and processed products (tertiary industry)], and integrates pre-production, mid-production, and post-production; in the development process of modern agriculture, scientific and technological level, financial capacity, informatization level, and management level are all indispensable, but financial capacity is very critical. In the early stage of scientific and technological risk, the development of modern agriculture lacks capital strength and lacks a financial system serving modern agriculture. Therefore, an applied innovation system marked by finance must be formed.”
As early as 2010, initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology and co-hosted by seven units including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the first China Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition opened. “We are providing a platform for those who hold good projects in their hands but suffer from a lack of funds, so that everyone can step forward and showcase projects and strive for funding.” At the opening of the competition, Zhang Laiwu gave a speech encouraging the whole society to participate actively. The competition collected a total of 1,771 valid registered projects, and in the end 19 projects obtained angel investment or venture capital, with total investment reaching 81.25 million yuan.
The “Science and Technology Commissioner System” becomes Chinese experience
More than ten years ago, when Zhang Laiwu worked in Ningxia, he deeply realized that the most direct and effective way to transform traditional agriculture and raise labor productivity was to rely on science and technology to improve the overall quality of workers and cultivate a professional agricultural workforce. Thus in 2002, Ningxia launched and implemented the action of science and technology commissioners starting rural science and technology businesses.
“Any entrepreneur who can bring science and technology to rural areas, to agriculture, and to farmers can be called a science and technology commissioner.” Zhang Laiwu could readily name a large group of commissioners. For example, Guo Yuejun of the Science and Technology Bureau of Pingluo County, Ningxia, was among the first batch of registered science and technology commissioners. In the past, when he went to the countryside to voluntarily promote the dry rice seedling and sparse planting technique, it was very difficult to make farmers believe it, but when the rice he planted himself increased in yield, farmers successively signed contracts with him, and his science and technology service company provided full technical services from planting to harvest.
“Leading farmers to do it, showing farmers how it is done, and taking farmers along to earn, the entrepreneurial mechanism and market mechanism enable science and technology commissioners and farmers to share risks and benefits, truly forming a community of shared interest with farmers.” Having designed and witnessed this action, Zhang Laiwu felt even more strongly the importance of focusing on organizational innovation, reorganizing industry, and cultivating new business entities. He believes that with the emergence of multiple business entities such as farms and large households, more attention will be paid to the market and brands, and the added value of agriculture will be greatly increased; with the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries of agriculture, business entities will become diversified, specialized, and professionalized, attracting more capital involvement and realizing the market value of agricultural science and technology to a greater extent.
The socialized entrepreneurial service model pioneered in Ningxia was widely promoted. By the end of 2011, science and technology commissioners nationwide had reached 240,000, becoming a national action jointly pursued by nine ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Ministry of Education. By September 2014, science and technology commissioners nationwide had grown to 730,000. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the work of science and technology commissioners, and in 2012 and 2013 this work was written into the No. 1 Central Document for two consecutive years. In 2014, the No. 1 Central Document explicitly proposed for the first time to “implement the science and technology commissioner system.” Science and technology commissioners have driven a large number of farmers to start businesses, led, founded, or co-founded a number of small and micro science and technology enterprises and agricultural cooperative economic organizations, accelerated the transformation, demonstration, promotion, and application of agricultural scientific and technological achievements, strengthened local distinctive advantageous industries, and promoted farmers' employment, income growth, and prosperity.
A single seed changes the world. The action of science and technology commissioners has attracted worldwide attention. The United Nations and many countries have asked to share China's experience, believing that this system and model are a worldwide breakthrough for solving the urban-rural dual structure and helping impoverished groups.
“Chinese agriculture is where breakthroughs are most needed, and modern agriculture is a major industry for enriching the country and the people.” Looking back on these years of exploration, Zhang Laiwu believes that the 730,000 science and technology commissioners are the vanguard of China's professional farmers. Chinese agriculture will be the main battlefield for hundreds of millions of professional farmers to start businesses, and will be a great stage for capable people from all walks of life to join hands in innovation.