Sustained and healthy development of leisure agriculture requires building a long-term mechanism

Leisure agriculture is a new type of consumer business and an important livelihood industry that has emerged in China in recent years. It has made positive contributions to increasing agricultural value and efficiency, raising farmers' employment and income, promoting rural prosperity and stability, and supporting sustained economic and social development. Facing new circumstances and new tasks, we need to adapt to the situation, carry out reform and innovation, tackle difficulties head-on, and work with real effort to promote the sustained and healthy development of leisure agriculture.

Affirm achievements, summarize experience, and further strengthen confidence and determination in developing leisure agriculture

Since the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, responding to the rapidly growing demand for leisure consumption among urban and rural residents, leisure agriculture management departments at all levels have effectively promoted the sustained and healthy development of leisure agriculture by strengthening departmental cooperation, improving support policies, standardizing industry management, strengthening public services, and cultivating well-known brands.

——The scale of the industry is growing steadily. In 2013, the annual number of visitors to leisure agriculture nationwide reached 900 million, and operating revenue reached 270 billion yuan, both maintaining a growth rate of more than 15%. In the first half of this year, 500 million tourist visits were received, operating revenue reached 150 billion yuan, and 30 million farmers benefited.

——The types of the industry are rich and diverse. The Ministry of Agriculture put forward requirements such as adapting to local conditions, scientific planning, rational layout, and diversified development. Based on their own circumstances, localities have continuously innovated development types on the basis of forms such as agritainment, folk-custom villages, leisure farms, and leisure granges, and have continuously expanded the economic, social, cultural, and ecological functions of leisure agriculture.

——The mode of development is gradually transforming. Through standardized management, the Ministry of Agriculture and localities have continuously guided leisure agriculture toward clustered distribution and intensive operation. The industrial zones and industrial belts that have formed place greater emphasis on leisure experiences and cultural displays, and pay more attention to functional linkage and complementary features.

——Brand building is continuously advancing. Through the driving force of typical examples, the Ministry of Agriculture and localities have continuously enhanced the social influence of leisure agriculture, and brand building has shown a good trend of “a hundred flowers blooming.” At present, 149 national leisure agriculture and rural tourism demonstration counties and 386 demonstration sites have been created, 140 of China's most beautiful leisure villages, 248 of China's beautiful pastoral landscapes, and more than 10,000 creative fine works have been recommended, and 39 China-Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems have been recognized, including 11 Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems.

Practice has proved that leisure agriculture is an agriculture-strengthening industry and a people-enriching industry that conforms to the laws of economic, natural, and social development, meets market demand, and contains enormous potential. It is a sunrise industry and an emerging industry that benefits the country and the people, achieves multiple effects at once, and drives the overall situation. The work of leisure agriculture is highly consistent with strategic measures currently being implemented by the state, such as modern agriculture construction, ecological civilization construction, integrated urban-rural development, and Beautiful China construction. Leisure agriculture management departments at all levels have consistently adhered to reform and innovation in their work practice and have explored and accumulated much valuable experience. First, attention should be paid to organizational leadership, strengthening work organization and top-level design; second, attention should be paid to policy support, effectively safeguarding farmers' interests; third, attention should be paid to planning guidance, clarifying development ideas, principles, layout, and priorities; fourth, attention should be paid to typical demonstrations, continuously improving relevant standards and methods; fifth, attention should be paid to enhancing connotations, tapping cultural resources; sixth, attention should be paid to creating a favorable atmosphere, promoting from multiple perspectives.

The achievements have not come easily, and the experience is extremely precious. This is both the result of hard work and a testimony to the development of the cause. We must conscientiously summarize these achievements and experiences, continue to practice and innovate, and exchange and learn from one another. Only in this way can we further strengthen confidence and determination and continuously promote new development and new progress in leisure agriculture.

Clarify ideas, highlight priorities, and strive to build a long-term mechanism that promotes the development of leisure agriculture

To further promote the development of leisure agriculture, we must base ourselves on the present, look to the long term, and continuously increase work intensity, especially by making strenuous efforts in five aspects.

First, we must optimize the development layout of leisure agriculture and make strenuous efforts in enriching types and industrial clustering. In terms of industrial layout, we must base ourselves on local realities, optimize the structural layout, take expanding agricultural functions, inheriting farming culture, providing vacation experiences, and popularizing science as the core, choose suitable regions for layout and development, and avoid rushing headlong into mass action. In terms of industrial types, we must further innovate development forms and promote diversified and personalized development of leisure agriculture. In particular, we must attach importance to supporting farmers in developing agritainment with their own courtyards as the carrier, and encourage the development of agritainment cluster villages. We must focus on building a number of beautiful pastoral landscapes and strive to improve the comprehensive benefits of agriculture. We must support business entities in collaboration and alliance, create fine routes, and promote the clustering of the leisure agriculture industry.

Second, we must enrich the development connotations of leisure agriculture and make strenuous efforts in creative design and cultural inheritance. In developing leisure agriculture, we must focus on developing rural cultural resources as a whole, strengthen creative design for agricultural products, farming landscapes, environmentally friendly packaging, local culture, and leisure agriculture business premises, develop a number of leisure commodities with local characteristics, and promote the integration of agriculture with culture, science and technology, ecology, and tourism. We must intensify the exploration of the historical, cultural, and landscape value of agricultural heritage, inherit and utilize it as an important resource for leisure agriculture, and promote the coordinated and sustainable economic and social development of heritage sites.

Third, we must raise the development level of leisure agriculture and make strenuous efforts in improving personnel quality and facilities. We must focus on cultivating a group of talents in planning and design, creative planning, and marketing to provide intellectual support for the development of leisure agriculture. We must carry out personnel training at different levels and in different categories to continuously improve the quality of practitioners. In conjunction with rural environmental improvement, we must promote infrastructure construction at leisure agriculture business premises and improve auxiliary facilities such as road signs, guide boards, and parking lots. We must improve the planting and breeding conditions of leisure agriculture and expand the functions of science popularization displays and demonstration promotion. We must encourage various business entities to build supporting service facilities such as specialty dining, accommodation, and shopping.

Fourth, we must standardize the development order of leisure agriculture and make strenuous efforts in standardized management and ecological protection. We must intensify the formulation and promotion of leisure agriculture standards, guide localities in formulating relevant standards at different levels, and gradually advance management standardization and service standardization. We must strictly implement national land policies, encourage the use of barren hills, barren slopes, barren beaches, abandoned mines, and other such areas to develop leisure agriculture, and put an end to acts that harm farmers' interests or illegally occupy cultivated land. We must guide various leisure agriculture business entities, while comprehensively considering the carrying capacity of resources and the environment, to intensify ecological and environmental protection and take the path of resource-conserving and environment-friendly development.

Fifth, we must cultivate leisure agriculture brands and make strenuous efforts in typical demonstrations and creating a favorable environment. We must continue to carry out the creation of national leisure agriculture and rural tourism demonstration counties and demonstration sites, the recommendation of China's most beautiful leisure villages, and the recommendation of China's beautiful pastoral landscapes, and build a number of influential well-known leisure agriculture brands. We must encourage localities to carry out brand creation and recommendation activities in their own regions and cultivate locally well-known brands.

Strengthen leadership, improve services, and continuously raise the level of work in advancing the development of leisure agriculture

Developing leisure agriculture is an important long-term task that concerns the overall situation of economic and social development. While continuing to strengthen planning guidance, standardized management, policy support, and public services, we must focus on doing the following five specific tasks well.

First, with farming culture as the soul, solidly advance the exploration and protection of important agricultural heritage. Exploring agricultural heritage is of great significance for carrying forward Chinese culture and promoting the sustainable development of China's agricultural and rural economy and society. Although China's work in exploring important agricultural heritage has achieved certain results, there are also problems such as an unclear baseline of agricultural heritage, weak awareness of protection, insufficient excavation of the essence of the heritage, and a mechanism for exploration and protection that needs to be improved. Strengthening the exploration and protection of agricultural heritage is an important responsibility of agricultural departments at all levels. They must carefully organize and guide the work, and on the basis of comprehensive general surveys, clarifying the baseline, and assessing value, define protection priorities; they must improve working mechanisms, take driving the sustainable economic and social development of heritage sites as the starting point and ultimate goal, and actively explore and improve protection policies; they must strengthen supervision and management, and urge the governments of locations of recognized heritage sites to set up heritage signs as required and do a good job in protection work in accordance with protection and development plans and management measures.

Second, with beautiful pastoral landscapes as the charm, solidly advance demonstration creation for leisure agriculture and rural tourism. The national demonstration creation work for leisure agriculture and rural tourism has received great attention from all localities, and the China's beautiful pastoral landscape recommendation activity has left a deep impression on everyone who has seen it, but there are also problems such as “full enthusiasm” for demonstration creation and “no one paying attention” to follow-up improvement. We must continue to follow the requirements for demonstration creation, improve the creation mechanism, pay more attention to the creation process, strengthen dynamic management, and truly enable those typical examples to stand out; we must strengthen coordination and cooperation, with leisure agriculture management departments at all levels effectively playing a leading role, proactively communicating and coordinating with tourism departments, and forming a joint force; we must further strengthen basic construction, strive to incorporate the construction of demonstration counties and demonstration sites into local overall economic and social development plans, incorporate beautiful pastoral landscapes into basic farmland or permanent farmland, and cherish and protect them as we do cultural relics and giant pandas.

Third, with ecological agriculture as the foundation, solidly advance the protection and utilization of rural resources and the environment. We must organically combine the development of leisure agriculture with ecological protection, advance them in a coordinated way, correctly handle the relationship between leisure agriculture development and ecological environmental protection, firmly establish the concept that protecting and improving the ecological environment is protecting and developing productive forces and that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets, and more consciously promote the green, circular, and low-carbon development of leisure agriculture; we must effectively adhere to ecological red lines and must never breach red lines such as those for cultivated land protection and water quality protection; we must strive to achieve ecological restoration, further support and encourage acts that restore and improve the ecological environment through the development of leisure agriculture, and guide business entities to continuously enhance the production capacity of ecological products.

Fourth, with innovation and creativity as the path, solidly advance the planning and design of creative agriculture. We must establish creative concepts, recognize the importance of creative design in enhancing the cultural soft power, industrial competitiveness, and sustained appeal of leisure agriculture, and place creative agriculture in an important position and do it well; we must cultivate a talent team, use various channels to train creative agriculture talents, attract more creative enthusiasts to devote themselves to the cause of leisure agriculture creativity, and provide intellectual support for industrial development; we must clarify creative priorities, tap traditional culture in aspects such as products, packaging, activities, and landscapes, highlight the characteristics of the times, manifest humanistic trends, and create a number of creative fine works.

Fifth, with ancient-style villages as the form, solidly advance the development and construction of the most beautiful leisure villages. We must take the development and construction of China's most beautiful leisure villages as a starting point and effectively advance the protection and development of ancient-style villages. We must strengthen awareness of protection and recognize that without traditional villages, nostalgia will have nowhere to rest, and “fallen leaves” will ultimately have no roots to rely on; we must carry out comprehensive development and utilization, combine it with promoting farmers' employment and income growth, guide farmers to combine protection with the development of leisure agriculture, strive to create “one village, one landscape,” and achieve living protection; we must strengthen publicity and recommendation. At present, China's most beautiful leisure villages have already formed a certain influence. On this basis, we must innovate publicity and recommendation methods and truly make China's most beautiful leisure villages a bright calling card for the construction of beautiful villages and Beautiful China.