Leisure agriculture has become a sunrise livelihood industry with huge development potential
Photo by Jiang Lei
On October 9, Beijing was shrouded in heavy smog, while in front of the Chunnui agritainment farmhouse in Yaxi Dashan tourism specialty village, Gaochun District, Nanjing, Boss Rui basked leisurely in the sun under blue skies and white clouds, holding his little grandson. During the just-passed “National Day” Golden Week, his Chunnui Inn and Chunnui agritainment farmhouse raked in handsome profits; on the noon of October 4 alone, they received more than 300 tourists, and that day's gross income reached 15,000 yuan.
“The development of leisure agriculture has fully demonstrated its economic function of promoting income growth, its social function of driving employment, its cultural function of protecting and passing on farming civilization, and its ecological function of beautifying rural environments. It has turned farming areas into scenic areas, fields into parks, fresh air into visitor appeal, labor into exercise, and agricultural products into commodities. It lets rural areas put idle land to use, lets farmers fill their leisure time, lets surplus labor flow, and lets traditional culture come alive, playing an irreplaceable and important role in agricultural and rural economic and social development. Leisure agriculture has become a strategic emerging industry that upgrades agriculture, beautifies villages, and enriches farmers.” On October 11, at the National Leisure Agriculture Experience Exchange Conference held in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, Yang Shaopin, a member of the Party Leadership Group of the Ministry of Agriculture, gave the above positioning on leisure agriculture.
Developing leisure agriculture is an effective way to promote farmers' employment and income growth
Promoting farmers' employment and income growth is the starting point and ultimate goal of leisure agriculture. A China Youth Daily reporter found during interviews in Gaochun District, Jiangning District and other places in Nanjing that leisure agriculture has now become an important way to lead farmers to prosperity.
In November 2010, Yaxi's “Ecological Journey” was rated an “International Slow City.” As part of the International Slow City area, Dashan Village began developing agritainment in 2011. Previously, Boss Rui's family grew 5 mu of rice, earning 2,000 yuan a year. Since running the agritainment business, they can now earn about 200,000 yuan a year. Now, his son and daughter-in-law have quit their jobs in Changzhou, no longer working away from home, and returned to run the agritainment business together.
According to preliminary statistics from the Nanjing Municipal Agriculture Commission, during the National Day holiday, leisure agriculture attractions in Nanjing received more than 2.8 million visitors, with comprehensive income exceeding 400 million yuan. The 10th China · Nanjing Agriculture Carnival held during the National Day period received 315,000 visitors and achieved sales revenue of 31.8 million yuan.
Data from the Ministry of Agriculture show that in 2013, there were more than 1.8 million various leisure agriculture operators nationwide, receiving 900 million visitors annually, with operating revenue of 270 billion yuan, benefiting 29 million farmers. In the first half of 2014, leisure agriculture nationwide received 500 million visitors, with operating revenue of 150 billion yuan, benefiting 30 million farmers. Taking Jiangsu Province alone as an example, in 2013 the comprehensive income of various leisure and sightseeing agriculture parks and attractions exceeded 22 billion yuan. In 2013, the comprehensive income of municipal-level agritainment specialty villages in Nanjing exceeded 93 million yuan, with the average net income per agritainment household exceeding 140,000 yuan, providing more than 1,300 jobs.
Developing leisure agriculture is an effective means of building beautiful villages
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that for China to be beautiful, the countryside must be beautiful. Beautiful villages and beautiful fields, as important components of Beautiful China and important areas in the layout of new urbanization planning, are precisely important carriers of leisure agriculture.
In Datangjin ecological tourism specialty village, Jiangning District, Nanjing, representatives attending the National Leisure Agriculture Experience Exchange Conference exclaimed one after another: “This doesn't look like a village at all!” Blue skies, green hills, clear waters, and clean land are the shared impression everyone has of this place.
On a beautifully printed promotional brochure, this “Number One Village of Landscape and Fragrance” introduces itself as follows: “A mid-to-high-end rural tourism base with wellness culture as its essence, integrating flower and herb experiences, leisure vacations, dietary conditioning, fitness sports, and a comprehensive lavender industry.” It is understood that in environmental improvement and infrastructure development, the local government invested a total of more than 60 million yuan in special assistance funds.
Now, of the 56 households in the village, many run agritainment businesses. In addition, the farmers' land is uniformly transferred to the village for lavender cultivation, and villagers receive dividends. The subdistrict also specifically established a tourism product development company to develop lavender-related products and local specialties, such as sachets, pillows, essential oils, handmade soaps and more than 10 other products. Matters involving business operators are handled by an on-site management office established by the subdistrict, and an agritainment cooperative has also been set up. It was recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture as one of the most beautiful leisure villages in the country.
Shiwa Taoyuan is one of the “Twelve Golden Flowers” of Nanjing Jiangning urban ecological leisure agriculture. Located in Dashiwa natural village, Zhoucun community, Guli subdistrict, Jiangning District, it features mainly Huizhou-style architecture, close to mountains and water, with each household presenting its own scenery. The village has 142 people. Construction began in October 2011, and the village was divided into 7 functional areas including an agritainment activity area, a farming DIY area, a Niushou culture exhibition and discussion area, and a lotus pond wetland area. It officially opened to the public in 2012. Shiwa Taoyuan agritainment specialty village won the title of Jiangsu's Most Charming Leisure Village.
According to Zong Jinyao, Director of the Agricultural Product Processing Bureau (Township Enterprise Bureau) of the Ministry of Agriculture, at present, batches of traditional villages are declining or even disappearing every year. “Once a traditional village loses its human activities, its soul and charm are no longer complete. Therefore, protection work must be combined with promoting farmers' employment and income growth, effectively guiding local farmers to combine protection with the development of leisure agriculture, striving to create ‘one village, one scenery,’ and achieving living protection.”
“Developing leisure agriculture objectively forces farmers to improve infrastructure such as water, electricity, roads, gas, housing and communications, treats mountains, waters, forests, fields and lakes as a community of life, beautifies village appearances, greens roads, purifies the environment, and creates a good leisure atmosphere.” Yang Shaopin said, “At the same time, it guides farmers to treat farming-and-reading civilization as the soft power of rural development, continuously improving the cultural connotation of villages, and on the whole driving the growth of new-type farmers who are cultured, know how to operate, and can manage, raising the level of rural civility.”
Developing leisure agriculture is an effective carrier for promoting urban-rural integration
The enormous economic benefits of operating leisure agriculture attract more and more talent, technology and capital to gather in rural areas, pulling urban infrastructure and public services to extend to rural areas, promoting the flow of consumer spending from cities to rural areas, curbing and changing the long-standing pattern of resource elements flowing mainly one-way from rural to urban areas, and it is and will certainly bring far-reaching influence to breaking the urban-rural dual structure.
Rui Guoliang of Dashan Village, 41 years old this year, usually runs the Sanxing Zhuyuan agritainment business with his father, and hires six or seven people when busy. During this year's “National Day” period, his net income was nearly 50,000 yuan. Rui Guoliang originally sold sporting goods elsewhere, with an annual salary of about 80,000 yuan. He told the China Youth Daily reporter that in 2011, for the first batch of villagers running agritainment businesses in the village, the guest room renovations were all funded by the government. “At the time I didn't believe city people would come all the way here. Later, after seeing that the first batch of agritainment operators all made money, I came back the next year to do it.” He listed his agritainment business on 58.com and Ctrip. “Starting from the third year, there were a great many returning customers.” Last year, his net income reached more than 300,000 yuan.
“It can be said that developing leisure agriculture has become an effective carrier for retaining people and wealth in rural areas, for cities to invest in and invigorate agriculture, and for deep urban-rural integration. Developing leisure agriculture must follow the overall principles of ‘putting agriculture first, scientific planning, adapting to local conditions, highlighting characteristics, strengthening services, standardized management, government guidance, and social participation.’” Yang Shaopin said.
Leisure agriculture must be highly valued from an industrial perspective
As a new industrial form and new consumption format, leisure agriculture has an irreplaceable position and role in serving residents, developing agriculture, prospering rural areas, enriching farmers, protecting ecology, and passing on culture, and is closely related to and highly consistent with the development strategies the country is implementing. Because of its unique role in connecting urban and rural areas and linking industry and agriculture, it has been called a “bridge industry” and a “hub industry” by some famous economists.
At the National Leisure Agriculture Experience Exchange Conference, Yang Shaopin emphasized many times to the representatives of agricultural departments from various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities present that leisure agriculture is an important component of modern agriculture and must be highly valued from an industrial perspective.
The Ministry of Agriculture established a leisure agriculture management agency in 2010 to strengthen organizational leadership and top-level design for national leisure agriculture work from the national level, and signed a cooperation framework agreement with the National Tourism Administration to guide local agriculture and tourism systems to jointly develop leisure agriculture and rural tourism. Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Henan and other provinces and autonomous regions have also established leading coordination bodies for leisure agriculture and rural tourism, with participation from departments such as agriculture departments and tourism bureaus.
“A good environment of mutual dependence and co-prosperity, a good ecology in which heaven and humanity share beauty and each beauty has its own beauty, and a harmonious beauty of blue skies, clean land, green hills and clear waters are important features that distinguish leisure agriculture from traditional tourism, and are also the very foundation on which leisure agriculture depends for survival and development.” Zong Jinyao said that developing leisure agriculture is a long-term important task that concerns the overall situation of economic and social development. “In the future, we will focus on doing the following five specific tasks well: taking farming culture as the soul, solidly advancing the discovery and protection of important agricultural cultural heritage; taking beautiful fields as the rhyme, solidly advancing the demonstration creation of leisure agriculture and rural tourism; taking ecological agriculture as the foundation, solidly advancing the protection and utilization of rural resources and environment; taking innovation and creativity as the path, solidly advancing the planning and design of creative agriculture; and taking ancient villages as the form, solidly advancing the development and construction of the most beautiful leisure villages.”
Yang Shaopin stressed that leisure agriculture is facing a rare development opportunity and contains huge development potential. Developing leisure agriculture should be grasped firmly and well as an important task in agricultural and rural economic work. “In development, we must apply bottom-line thinking, and we must never breach the red lines for farmland protection and water quality protection.” Yang Shaopin said.