To diagnose the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, six voices must be integrated

The complexity of China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue is arguably the greatest in the world. Those who diagnose and prescribe remedies for China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" constitute a vast array, each often presenting their own bag of tricks and displaying their own clever schemes, but amid the profusion of opinions, it is no exaggeration to say that many belong to the category of "blind men feeling an elephant." To accurately diagnose and correctly prescribe for China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers," one must listen to multiple voices and integrate various viewpoints. It must both accord with the central government's major policies and combine with local realities, and moreover fit with the sentiments and will of the people. This is a historical necessity, a reflection of objective laws, and a concentration of public opinion.

The voice of farmers

No one understands farmers better than farmers themselves, no one cares more about farmers than farmers themselves, and no one is more responsible to farmers than farmers themselves. In diagnosing "agriculture, rural areas and farmers," the voice of farmers is fundamental and foundational, but collecting, summarizing, integrating, refining and elevating the voice of farmers is an extremely difficult task: First, it is fragmented. With the development of the market economy and the deepening of rural reform, the formerly monolithic farmer class is undergoing internal differentiation. In occupational terms, farmers in the traditional sense have differentiated into agricultural laborers, migrant workers, hired hands, rural intellectuals, individual industrial and commercial households, private entrepreneurs, rural enterprise managers, rural administrators, and so on. In terms of income levels, relatively obvious income distribution gaps have emerged in rural areas, with farming households appearing at different tiers such as wealthy, affluent, moderately prosperous, subsistence, and poor. "Viewed from the side it is a ridge, from the front a peak; from near and far, from high and low, it is different." Different levels of education and life circumstances determine that farmers' responses to the same issue or the same matter vary in sequence, speed, and intensity, fragmented and vastly different. Second, it is specific. When sitting down with farmers, most raise trivial and concrete issues, with their focus perhaps only on the village pond, the front door path, the streetlight at the village entrance, or the grove behind the house. They speak whatever comes to mind, without rational generalization or logical classification. Third, it is realistic. What farmers care about is their immediate livelihood and their vital interests; they tend to be indifferent to and unconcerned with beautiful blueprints and grand goals. This year's crop harvest, the treatment received in migrant work, and the current family income and expenditure are the topics they are most eager to discuss. Fourth, it is emotional. Due to limitations in education level, lifestyle, and living environment, fierce emotional expression is often the customary mode for farmers; they find it hard to engage in calm rational narration and dialectical analysis of problems.

On the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue, the voice of farmers is the main body, but it often struggles to become the mainstream or the theme. Extremely important yet often rendered irrelevant, the reasons lie in: First, scattered distribution. A massive group of eight to nine hundred million people, dispersed across more than 3 million natural villages; over two hundred million migrant workers, spread across large, medium, and small cities nationwide, scattered across manufacturing, construction, services, and numerous other industries; many frequently travel between urban and rural areas. Their voices are dispersed and at the very bottom; the scattered temporal and spatial distribution makes it difficult for their voices to form a powerful "resonance." Second, loose organization. Since the founding of the PRC, and especially since reform and opening up, China has gradually formed multiple social strata with different interest demands, thereby forming organizations representing the interests of respective strata such as trade unions, federations of industry and commerce, chambers of commerce, women's federations, and various industry associations. But farmers, who constitute the majority of the national population, lack such an organization, existing instead like potatoes packed in a sack labeled "farmers" yet separated from one another. On July 1, 2007, the "Law on Specialized Farmers' Cooperatives" was formally implemented, but to date most cooperative organizations in various localities still operate in the loose form of specialized associations, with tightly-knit cooperatives and joint-stock cooperatives being few in number. Take Anhui, with over 50 million rural residents, as an example: at present there are 3,900 association-type organizations, accounting for 85% of the total number of cooperative organizations. Farmers without organization naturally have no spokespersons or voice. Third, weak bargaining power. Among people's congress deputies and CPPCC members at all levels, farmer representatives are negligible, and the higher the level, the smaller the proportion of farmer representatives. For the National People's Congress, rural areas produce one deputy per 960,000 people, while urban areas produce one per 240,000 people; urban representatives are four times rural representatives. Among the over one hundred million migrant workers, there are only three NPC deputies, each representing tens of millions of people. Farmers' voices struggle to reach the national decision-making level, lacking bargaining chips in the competition and checks and balances of social interests, sinking to the lower levels of the national political structure, weak and powerless.

The voice of farmers conceals essence within appearances, accumulates strength within dispersion, foretells the long term within the immediate, and contains the abstract within the concrete. In diagnosing "agriculture, rural areas and farmers," the voice of farmers should always be the mainstream, the theme, the keynote, and the foundation. In carrying out "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" work, one should first expend bitter effort, solid effort, and genuine effort in clearly hearing the true voice of farmers: First, go deep among the people. Walk through villages and households, go to the fields and threshing floors, to the edges of fields and the kang, genuinely befriend farmers, and sincerely communicate with the masses. That kind of "flying visitor" or "dragonfly skimming the water" style of investigation cannot possibly obtain true information. Second, understand the people's voice. Be thoroughly familiar with farm household life, deeply understand local culture, master the language of the masses, discern changing situations amid household chatter, and seek the direction of popular sentiment among ten thousand villages. Third, represent public opinion. "Those who know the failures of governance are in the court and the countryside; those who know the leaks in the house are beneath the roof." Standing on the side of farmers and gathering public opinion is always the first principle for engaging in rural work and making sound "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" decisions.

The currently popular online surveys are a survey method commonly adopted by all official and non-governmental survey agencies. This "fast-food style" public opinion assessment has major drawbacks. Objectively speaking, netizens can only represent a relatively privileged segment of the population, not the general public, and certainly not farmers, because those who go online do not amount to 1% of farmers. Some commentaries hold that "data obtained from seven or eight hundred thousand online participants may be less scientific and less representative of public opinion than a survey with a sample of ten thousand." "What is gained from the internet is ultimately shallow; to truly understand this matter, one must practice it personally." Getting close to farmers, going deep into rural areas, the more one listens the better, the more comprehensively the better. In some matters, we say farmers are disobedient, but that is because we have not first listened to farmers. Only when we first listen to farmers will farmers listen to us.

The voice of officials

Officials belong to the social elite and control administrative power and dominate discourse. The voice of officials generally has the following characteristics: First, high vantage point. Observing the economy and society with the perspective of "all other mountains look small," grasping the features of the situation. Second, commanding the overall situation. Able to combine changes in the external world with local development to study problems, identify the key amid complex contradictions, and grasp the theme. Third, strong sensitivity. Planning ahead and strategizing in advance, their professional responsibility generally endows them with forward-looking decision-making and political sensitivity.

Overall, the voice of officials is mostly relatively rational, but not without irrational elements; relatively accurate, but not necessarily correct; with prominent focuses, but not necessarily fully in line with reality. Behind their voices there may be other purposes hidden. When listening to some grassroots officials holding forth, one must genuinely ascertain their motives and objectives. First, guard against image projects. Loudly advocating doing something is not because it is truly needed, but merely to build public opinion for so-called face and political achievements. Former Minister of Construction Wang Guangtao criticized that as many as 183 cities nationwide proposed building "modern international metropolises," when even the capital Beijing did not dare to propose this; the plan currently issued positions it only as a "modern international city." If one acted according to this voice and built according to this framework, only a wasteland could result. The thinker Wang Fuzhi of the Ming-Qing transition found through research that officials throughout history, out of enthusiasm or other motives, often vigorously promoted certain types of cultivation and breeding that they believed would benefit the people, only for the people to suffer harm instead. This is the "Wang Fuzhi Law," as famous as the "Huang Zongxi Law." Second, guard against short-term behavior. Some officials, for temporary gain or due to limited vision, launch projects and start construction that are obsolete before completion; the phenomenon of building then demolishing and demolishing then building is extremely common in China. Since reform and opening up, the hundreds of billions of square meters of buildings that rose rapidly have an average lifespan of only about thirty years, equivalent to only half of their supposed lifespan. The lessons of such shortsightedness are truly too many to count. The New York City municipal plan was made over a hundred years ago and is still being built according to the blueprint, with its overall framework not outdated. A central leader at the time, after inspecting the Pearl River Delta, was left with the impression: "Passing one village after another, every village looks like a town. Passing one town after another, every town looks like a village." The hidden dangers left by construction and development lacking long-term vision may sometimes cost far more than starting from scratch. Third, guard against formalism. For example, in coordinating urban and rural areas and advancing new rural construction, a principle commonly followed everywhere is "act according to one's capacity." Admittedly, new rural construction cannot be accomplished overnight, and acting according to one's capacity is beyond reproach. But some places, under the name of acting according to one's capacity, practice "acting slowly according to capacity" or "not acting according to capacity," implementing meetings with meetings and documents with documents, using poverty as an excuse to eliminate the "capacity" altogether, merely holding meetings and issuing documents with empty shouts, or creating a few model cases and leaving it at that. Fourth, guard against collusion between power and capital. In recent years, as governments at all levels continuously increased investment in and support for "agriculture, rural areas and farmers," the forces of market and capital accelerated their penetration into rural areas, causing the internal drive for power rent-seeking among some local grassroots governments to increase markedly. At the same time, because the construction of the villager self-governance system remains at a low level, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision have not been truly implemented. In land requisition, land transfer, and the operation of collective assets, power rent-seeking by grassroots cadres has shown a spreading trend, using the name of new rural construction to carry out "land enclosure movements" and "asset revitalization" with constantly renewed tricks, colluding with unscrupulous businessmen for mutual profit.

Therefore, when conducting grassroots research and listening to various reports, one must not only listen to what they say but also observe what they do, and moreover examine the results, to ascertain the "voice" behind their "voice."

The voice of experts and scholars

The "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue commands nationwide attention; "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" writings fill countless volumes; "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" experts gather like clouds of great scholars. Since the early 20th century, when intellectual elites such as Yan Yangchu and Liang Shuming instigated the rural reconstruction movement, an increasing number of experts and scholars have focused their attention on "agriculture, rural areas and farmers." As experts and scholars: First, they possess abundant professional knowledge. "Each field has its own specialty"; experts and scholars engage in long-term research in a certain field and possess relatively broad professional knowledge reserves. Second, their insights are profound. Experts and scholars have deep academic backgrounds, observing things and viewing problems more rationally, profoundly, and thoroughly. Third, they are relatively detached. Experts and scholars dwell in ivory towers, standing outside "agriculture, rural areas and farmers"; in studying "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" they have no direct interest connection with agricultural and rural work, possessing a kind of "outsider" detachment. Fourth, they dare to speak frankly. Experts mostly debate on scholarly grounds, reasoning and discussing matters, speaking directly and to their heart's content.

The voice of experts and scholars possesses profound rationality and innovative thinking, but its biases are also obvious: First, overgeneralizing from partial evidence. Some experts and scholars focus more on points and less on the whole picture, fixing on parts and neglecting overall planning. For example, in the past two years, rural land transfer has become a hot focus of widespread academic attention. Some, taking local areas or individual typical cases as their logical starting point, probe the minute and explore the hidden, cite extensively and draw widely, strongly advocate acceleration, driving the media to wave flags and shout, beat drums in support, stirring what was originally a fine pastoral scene flowing like clouds and water into a "storm approaching." In fact, land transfer has been ongoing since the implementation of the household contract management system, with no policy obstacles whatsoever. Land transfer is a normal economic phenomenon; it can only generate demand and supply according to market laws, and can only accelerate or slow down with local economic and social development. Behind the hype there exist obvious misconceptions. Second, dogmatism. This is a common ailment of some experts and scholars and some officials. Taking theory as dogma and books as scripture, separating theory from practice and subjectivity from objectivity, there are specifically four manifestations. The first is dogmatizing Marxism, viewing Marxism without a developmental and dialectical perspective, refusing concrete analysis of concrete situations, denying that practice is the sole criterion for testing truth, merely swallowing fragments of Marxist writings whole and treating them as panaceas and uniform classic formulas to be mechanically applied everywhere. The second is dogmatizing the West. Superstitiously worshiping Western theory, blindly applying theorems and models, disregarding national conditions, and wholesale Westernization. The third is neo-dogmatism. That is, the theory that the market is omnipotent, asserting that the less government manages the market the better, and no management at all is best, completely unaware of the legal constraints and democratic forces behind the market. The fourth is old dogmatism. That is, empiricism, studying problems and judging situations not from the true nature and development trends of things, but more from feelings, guesswork, and experience. Third, strong idealistic coloring. Some experts and scholars long reside in ivory towers and habitually look on from the sidelines, not conducting investigation and research, trapped in academic studies. In terms of principle they only discuss "whether it should be done," regardless of "whether it can be done"; in terms of operation they only seek possibility, not asking about feasibility. For example, some experts, based on numerous classic theories, reasoning from macroscopic, theoretical, and logical perspectives, conclude that "to enrich farmers, one must reduce farmers" and "currently the urbanization process must be accelerated." These conclusions are all correct, but reducing farmers requires grasping the pace; the urbanization process has its own objective laws. Looking at the pace of urbanization development across countries worldwide, after entering the accelerated development stage, the global average annual increase in urbanization rate is 0.336 percentage points. China entered the accelerated urbanization development stage starting in 1978. In thirty years of reform and opening up, our urbanization rate rose from 17.9% in 1978 to 45.7% in 2008, an average annual increase of 0.93 percentage points, an already astonishing growth rate. After entering the accelerated urbanization stage, to raise the urbanization rate by 20 percentage points, we took only 22 years, while the United States took over 80 years and the United Kingdom took over 120 years. Our urbanization has already been at "Great Leap Forward" speed; going faster will bring many future troubles. Moreover, urbanization should first and foremost be the urbanization of people. We have over one hundred million farmers who have entered cities but have not yet enjoyed equal treatment as urban residents, and the cities are already unable to bear the burden. Fourth, lack of independence. Chinese literati historically were mostly kept by those in power, and have always had a gene of "calcium deficiency," that is, lack of independence and lack of their own independent views. Those receiving fiscal appropriations must listen to leaders and serve leaders; those receiving foreign funding dare not offend foreigners; those kept by enterprises must echo enterprises. "He who takes from others has a short hand"; without economic independence, academic independence is naturally weak. Add to this the political upheavals of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and many people still have lingering fears, afraid of saying the wrong thing, lacking independent academic personality. Now there are many who are good at "explaining" but too few who dare to "speak plainly." What is especially worth guarding against is that today, under market economy conditions, some experts and scholars have become spokespersons for departmental interests and profit-seeking by powerful groups.

Regarding the voice of experts and scholars, one should uphold letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, uphold saying all that one knows without reservation, with the speaker blameless and the listener taking warning. Experts and scholars should be encouraged to combine with China's national conditions, base themselves on reality, think independently, and continuously voice opinions with an innovative spirit.

The voice of the media

Mass media plays the role of "watchman" in economic and social development. As instruments of society, various media: First, disseminate information quickly and efficiently. Under normal conditions, they can achieve "communication upward and downward," covering the whole society; in sudden "public events," they can respond sensitively with deep and broad reach, promptly and fully disseminating information. Second, guide public opinion and grasp orientation. Through the selection and arrangement of information, they embody the power of "letting facts speak," scientifically and reasonably conveying the major policies of the Party and the state, forming a mainstream discourse system, and supporting a harmonious public opinion environment. Third, social supervision is broad and full. Paying attention to social trends, discerning the myriad aspects of society, promoting good and rejecting evil, praising the beautiful and condemning the ugly, dissecting various contradictions, analyzing interest conflicts, with reach extending everywhere.

Since the central government proposed in 2003 that "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" work should be the top priority of the whole Party's work, news media nationwide have continuously increased their publicity efforts on "agriculture, rural areas and farmers," but they remain far from the "top priority" responsibility they should bear: First, belittling agriculture. Content focused on urban life fills the pages and screens, while information originating from rural society accounts for a very small proportion of media reality. Second, profit-seeking. As the industrial attributes of mass media become prominent, some media neglect social responsibility and compete in pursuing commercial benefits. Third, hype. Some media "look only to" commercial interests, with varying degrees of vulgar, pandering, and tasteless phenomena. Some journalists even wantonly sensationalize extremely isolated bad behavior by farmers, placing it as street-corner entertainment, abandoning professional ethics for the eyeball economy. Fourth, misreading. Some media practitioners do not deeply understand the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue and the current rural situation, do not research thoroughly, understand in a biased way, and lack overall perspective and a truth-seeking spirit.

At present, the media has entered the "age of insight" from the "age of news" and the "age of analysis," and its influence is especially enormous. Nowadays there is street-corner talk: only two kinds of people in the world can turn the earth, one is national leaders, the other is media program hosts. The characteristics of the media determine that it is not necessarily the decisive force in solving the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue, but it is certainly an indispensable driving force. In listening to the media's voice, one should pay attention to grasping the problem of weak voice caused by "belittling agriculture" and "profit-seeking," and the problem of "distortion" caused by "hype" and "misreading."

The voice of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

China's 30 years of rural reform have generally unfolded along two directions: "protecting private rights" and "limiting public power." The functions of organizations possessing "public power" are gradually weakening, while the autonomous space of civil organizations is strengthening. The emergence and flourishing of various non-governmental organizations play a unique role in the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" field: First, the gathering of public opinion. Since reform and opening up, farmers' self-awareness, subject consciousness, democratic consciousness, legal awareness, and rights awareness have markedly increased. At the same time, as the farmer group continuously splits, differentiates, and recombines, different groups have different value orientations, and interest demands are increasingly diverse. Non-governmental organizations provide effective resources for farmers of different regions, strata, and industries to unite and cooperate and express demands, create multiple platforms, and provide conditions for farmers to organize and expand their voice. Second, industry representation. Developing non-governmental organizations in various agricultural industries has always been the common choice of farmers worldwide to meet market challenges and overcome the weakness of agriculture. In recent years, some localities in China have implemented industry management with professional cooperative organizations such as associations and cooperatives as the main body, not only filling the institutional gaps in the agricultural management system but also organizing dispersed individuals, enabling the millions of farming households engaged in agriculture to voice their true opinions on various competitive platforms and raise their market position. Third, buffering conflicts. Non-governmental organizations establish interest coordination and expression mechanisms between farmers and other social groups, market entities, and government organizations, avoiding direct and sharp conflicts among various social groups, installing a "shock absorber" and injecting "lubricant" for economic and social operation.

The voice of non-governmental organizations originates from farmers yet is higher than farmers; it is the comprehensive, systematized expression derived from summarizing and integrating the voices of millions of atomized farmers. But the voice of non-governmental organizations also has limitations: First, weakness. The long-term planned system created a massive "omnipotent government," taking charge of everything in rural economic and social affairs. Under the strong state control model, the strength of non-governmental organizations in China's rural society is very weak. To date, the overall situation of rural organizations remains: "government-run organizations" are rigid and inactive, self-governance organizations survive in alienated form, civil organizations exist but are inactive, and spontaneous organizations struggle to survive. For non-governmental organizations, there are too many constraints from concepts, systems, institutions, and management; their space for growth is very narrow, and their status and voice are low. Second, partiality. Among non-governmental organizations, whether guilds, chambers of commerce, associations, or cooperatives, all are interest communities spontaneously formed by some farmers linked by occupational or geographic ties. Their voices only originate from the demands of farmers in a certain aspect or group, with limited representativeness and insufficient comprehensiveness. Considering and adopting the opinions of a single non-governmental organization alone often touches the vital interests of related groups, triggering reference demands and chain reactions. Third, government-run nature. Most rural non-governmental organizations are endogenous to the original system, and the vast majority were established under the direct or indirect promotion of the government, having inextricable links with the government and its relevant departments from the outset. In the development of non-governmental organizations in some places, government leadership is emphasized, but in reality government departments take the lead in organizing and control personnel authority and decision-making power. Many farmers' cooperative economic organizations "kneaded together" by administrative means speak "official language" and handle "public affairs," unable to express members' wishes and difficult to represent the masses' interests.

The state gradually narrowing the scope of the public domain, expanding the autonomous space of civil society, implementing division of labor and cooperation between governmental and non-governmental organizations, and using civil forces to "supplement the deficiencies of official governance" should be said to be the crystallization of several thousand years of experience and lessons in China's rural social governance. In listening to NGO voices, while fully utilizing their advantages of effectively integrating industry wishes and discerning industry trends, one should pay attention to overcoming their shortcomings of narrowness, partiality, and utilitarianism.

Voices from abroad

From the reforms of the late Qing Dynasty to the explorations of the Republic of China, from the commune movement in the early years of the PRC to the current new round of reform, China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue has attracted not only countless Chinese scholars but also a large number of overseas scholars. It should be said that overseas research findings on China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue constitute the main thread of "Sinology" and "China Studies," continuing unbroken from the early last century to the present, such as Philip Huang's "The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China" and Prasenjit Duara's "Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942," both representative works of overseas research on rural China. Since reform and opening up, foreign research on China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue has become even more prominent, producing major repercussions in both Chinese academic and political circles. Voices from abroad have a unique rhythm: First, the comparative method. Overseas researchers easily adopt the standpoint of "outsiders" and the world framework to view China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue, often placing it within different reference systems for analysis and comparison, providing a new coordinate system for scientifically positioning and evaluating rural social evolution and agricultural industry development. Second, diverse perspectives. Scholars from Western disciplines such as economics, sociology, history, and political science start from different angles, using their respective theoretical models and thinking frameworks to conduct research on China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers." Third, fewer constraints. Overseas researchers are unconstrained and relatively detached, not following established frameworks or cumbersome formalities, analyzing problems incisively and hitting the mark, with policy recommendations opening new paths and striking at the key, opening up new space for China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" research.

Voices from abroad have innate advantages, but also some prominent drawbacks: First, not acclimatized. Some overseas researchers and research institutions have not truly grasped China's national conditions and do not fully understand China's reality. Following diagnosis to prescribe, relying solely on Western experience, and dispensing remedies by applying foreign models, the results are often "southern oranges become northern trifoliate oranges," departing from the original intent. In 1990, the German Seidel Foundation established Nanzhanglou Village in Qingzhou City, Shandong Province, as a Sino-German cooperative experimental zone, confidently promoting the world-renowned "Bavarian experience," striving through investment in education, land consolidation, and infrastructure construction to build this place into a quiet, gentle, locally rooted, self-sufficient "pastoral idyll" style new countryside. Over a decade later today, the Germans have helplessly discovered that after going out to work, farmers returned to the village and founded more than 80 enterprises, agricultural production has gradually become a sideline, and the pastoral life they placed high hopes on has nearly dissipated. The German experience inevitably clashed fiercely with the reality of rural China, and the original goals have become difficult to achieve. Second, political bias. Some Western scholars cling to the philosophy of struggle, still viewing China through colored glasses, now spreading the theory of China's decline, now spreading the theory of China threat, propagating backward and negative aspects. In 1994, American scholar Lester Brown published "Who Will Feed China?" Brown argued that between 1990 and 2030, China would become the largest grain importer, causing world grain prices to rise sharply, entering an era of grain shortage, thereby depriving low-income countries and populations of food rights, exacerbating world poverty, triggering economic collapse and political turmoil, and destroying the natural ecosystem on which humanity depends. Once this article appeared, it immediately caused a great uproar in the international community, causing a certain degree of negative impact on our country's development. Such voices must be treated with vigilance.

China's "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" issue has always been a focus of international attention. Regarding voices from abroad, we should always maintain the following three attitudes: First, a clear-headed mind, not confused by others' words, not frightened by interference, not worried by difficulties, remaining calm and firm in stance. Second, an open mind, possessing world vision and international thinking, neither arrogantly self-important nor self-abasing, taking the essence and discarding the dross, learning from other countries' strengths and accepting good advice readily. Third, the bearing of a great power, advancing and retreating with measure, doing things with ease, with a harmonious and understanding mentality, observing the winds and clouds of the five continents and discerning the warmth and cold of the four seas.

Different voices represent different groups, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, and all are indispensable important elements in the "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" symphony. We must be able to understand and be willing to listen, able to discern overtones and understand true intentions; and be able to communicate and be good at interaction, through equal dialogue, exchanging ideas, seeking common ground and resolving doubts; and moreover be able to integrate and diligent in thinking, grasping the meeting points where various voices resonate at the same frequency and seeking the balance point for joint progress. Only in this way can we converge various voices, set the right tone for "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" work, and perform a splendid and harmonious movement that conforms to reality.