Developing moderate-scale agricultural operations must be both proactive and prudent

    China has a large population and little land, and the average household farmland scale is tiny, far below the international average, and the level of agricultural labor productivity is relatively low. With the advancement of China's industrialization and urbanization, farmers' non-agricultural employment income has continued to rise, while their willingness to engage in agriculture has been declining day by day, and extensive management or even direct abandonment of farmland has become a common phenomenon. At the same time, the acceleration of globalization has made China's tiny-scale agricultural operations difficult to cope with international competition, and the situation for agricultural industry security is severe. Therefore, China's food security has been affected, and “who will farm the land” and “how to farm the land” have become difficult problems urgently needing solutions. Developing scale operations is an inevitable choice for China to realize agricultural modernization. Recently, the central government reviewed and approved the “Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Operating Rights to Develop Moderate-Scale Agricultural Operations.” The “Opinions” closely revolve around the reform direction determined by the resolution of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee, and establish policy guidelines and measures to promote moderate-scale agricultural operations. The Opinions are based on China's national conditions, fully absorb the experience of world agricultural development, and both clarify policy measures to actively advance agricultural scale operations and set norms for problems that have emerged in the process of policy implementation in China. The implementation of the “Opinions” will have a far-reaching impact on promoting China's rural reform and development and advancing agricultural modernization.

Agricultural competition in the era of internationalization has intensified, and developing scale operations is an inevitable choice for countries around the world in responding to competition, but the huge differences among countries in agricultural resource endowments and stages of development determine differences in the development of agricultural operation scale. The production characteristics and resource conditions of agriculture determine that the operation scale is not the bigger the better, and must be moderate. The agricultural operation scale must be compatible with the urbanization process and the scale of rural labor transfer, with the progress of agricultural science and technology and the degree of improvement in production methods, and must also be compatible with the level of agricultural operation organizations and agricultural socialized services. The reason for emphasizing “moderate” is precisely to avoid the blind expansion of land scale. The core of moderate-scale operation lies in equal returns for operators, that is, ensuring that farmers' income from agricultural production can be comparable to income from secondary and tertiary industries. From the experience of developed countries, there are multiple ways to achieve moderate-scale operation. European and American countries mainly achieve scale operation through land sale, lease, or entrustment to realize land transfer, while Japan, South Korea, and China's Taiwan region mainly achieve scale operation through developing farmers' cooperative organizations or associations to form unions of farming households. At the current stage, considering China's resource endowment and the characteristics of agricultural products, there may simultaneously be three paths to achieve moderate-scale operation. One is that for land-use-type agricultural products, especially grain, cotton, and oil crops, it is necessary to achieve a certain operation scale through the transfer of land operating rights, and to realize moderate-scale operation mainly in the form of scale-operation households + socialized service organizations; the second is that for labor-intensive agricultural products, such as vegetables, fruits, and other horticultural products, moderate-scale operation is realized not through the expansion of land scale, but mainly through facility-based production and increasing added value, and mainly in the form of scale production bases + cooperative organizations. The third is that for capital-intensive agricultural products, such as livestock and poultry and other agricultural products, moderate-scale operation is realized mainly through the expansion of capital, and mainly in the form of scale breeding communities + leading enterprises. Because moderate-scale land operation focuses on land-intensive crops such as grain, it is crucial to safeguarding China's food security.

From the development experience of major developed countries in realizing agricultural modernization, the scale of land operation constantly adjusts and changes in the process of agricultural modernization, and its average scale usually expands with the improvement of the level of economic development. At the same time, the production characteristics of agriculture determine that the family is the basic form of agricultural operation. Whether in European and American countries with large and medium-sized farms as the main body, or in East Asian countries and regions with small-scale farming households as the main body, all show the characteristic of family farms as the main body and the common development of multiple forms of scale operation. In line with the general laws of world agricultural development, China's agricultural operations will also show a situation in which scale farming households and traditional contracted farming households coexist for a long time. According to the standards given by the Ministry of Agriculture, defining the moderate land scale as equivalent to 10-15 times the local average contracted land area per household is in line with China's national conditions and agricultural conditions at the current stage. At the current stage, it is impossible for China to achieve land scale expansion for all farming households in a short period of time; it is only possible for some farming households with operating capacity to achieve land scale operation, while most farming households will still operate on a small scale. It is impossible for us to simply force the transfer of farmers' land without solving the way out for farmers leaving agriculture. While considering advancing moderate-scale operation, it is necessary to consider the sustainability of operations of farming households with tiny land scales.

Along with the rapid development of industrialization, urbanization, informatization, and agricultural modernization, China's rural surplus labor has been transferred on a large scale, and the number of people engaged in farming has continuously decreased, which provides a rare opportunity for advancing land transfer and realizing moderate-scale operation. On the one hand, in economically underdeveloped areas, the problem of fragmented contracted land can be solved through exchange and consolidation of land, and with the fruits of economic development, moderate-scale operation can be gradually realized; on the other hand, in areas where conditions permit, ways such as land subcontracting, leasing, transfer, and shareholding can be explored, the rights relationships and realization forms of land ownership, contracting rights, and operating rights in the process of land transfer can be clarified, and the process of agricultural modernization can be vigorously advanced. Developing moderate-scale operation not only means realizing moderate land scale, but also requires cultivating operating entities compatible with it. At the current stage, it is still necessary to adhere to the foundation of family operation, actively encourage the common development of cooperative operation, joint operation, and other forms of operating entities, vigorously support the development of socialized service organizations, and build a three-dimensional and composite modern agricultural operation system based on family operation, with cooperation and union as the bond, and with socialized services as support. Training for new-type professional farmers will help solve the problem of “who will farm the land and how to farm the land,” and the “Opinions” also emphasized this.

It should be noted that the smooth realization of moderate-scale operation cannot be separated from the support of hardware and software conditions. On the one hand, because agricultural infrastructure has the attribute of a public good and generally requires relatively large investment, farming households' willingness to invest is insufficient. Therefore, according to the actual situation in each place, agricultural support funds should be tilted toward agricultural infrastructure construction to lay the foundation for developing moderate-scale operation. On the other hand, corresponding institutional design is also needed to coordinate with it, such as institutional and mechanism innovation to promote the transfer of agricultural labor and the citizenization of migrant workers. Because transferring land for scale operation often means that a large number of farmers must be transferred out of the agricultural sector, or even out of rural areas, namely “industrial transfer” and “identity change,” and how to solve the employment and livelihood problems of farmers after completing the transfer, and whether they truly achieve citizenization, will affect the stability of moderate-scale operation.