Cooperative farms boost returns: eight people cultivate over a thousand mu of land
A Ministry of Agriculture investigation team that stays grounded and observes people's conditions went to Jiangsu for research for more than half a month, conducting an in-depth study of the rice and wheat planting and management model in Dianzhan Village, Chengxiang Town, Taicang City.
Dianzhan Village has a total of 1350 mu of rice and wheat farmland, all of which has been transferred to the village collective, farmed by 8 professional farmers. But unlike ordinary individual transferred management, they use a “cooperative farm” management model, that is, the village established the Tianzhan Farm Professional Cooperative, under which 8 sub-farms were set up, and 8 professional farmers with more than 20 years of rice planting experience were selected as sub-farm managers. Each season the cooperative signs an entrusted planting management contract with the sub-farm managers, planting rice or wheat according to the cooperative's requirements.
In planting management, the “four fixes and four unifies” are implemented, namely fixed yield, fixed cost, fixed remuneration, fixed rewards and penalties, unified seed supply, unified agricultural technical guidance, unified irrigation and drainage, and unified designated grain sales departments. Take this year's rice planting as an example. For one mu of land, the yield approved by the cooperative is 900 jin, the cost of production materials carefully calculated by the cooperative is 553 yuan, and the cost of management labor is 327 yuan, which the sub-farm manager contracts for. When the rice is harvested, the sub-farm manager hands over to the cooperative according to the 900 jin standard; any excess yield belongs to the sub-farm manager, and any shortfall is compensated by the sub-farm manager.
Wang Biren, one of the 8 sub-farm managers, signed a planting management contract for 172 mu. During this year's rice planting period, he controlled labor costs well; the husband and wife did more of the work themselves, and one mu of land cost about 150 yuan less than the cost approved by the cooperative, which they could keep for themselves. He said that if this year's rice yield reaches 1000 jin per mu, they can still earn 100 jin of income per mu, which by calculation comes to 159 yuan. In one rice season they can earn more than 50,000 yuan, and in a good year even more.
The cooperative's returns are fixed. For one mu of rice, the cooperative collects 900 jin, and at the expected rice purchase price of 1.59 yuan/jin, the income is 1431 yuan; after deducting the production materials and labor costs subsidized to the sub-farm manager, there is still about 550 yuan of return.
According to Shen Jianzhong, head of the Tianzhan Farm Professional Cooperative, in 2014 the village collective, through the cooperative farm model, could obtain a return of 767 yuan per mu for the two seasons of rice and wheat, plus 650 yuan in subsidies from governments at all levels for planting rice, for a total benefit of 1417 yuan per mu, and farmers could again receive a considerable dividend this year.
After careful analysis, Shen Guanghong, head of the investigation team, and other members found that the “cooperative farm” model solved the problem of land fragmentation. After the farmland was concentrated, the village collective carried out unified planning and improvement of the land, built high-standard farmland, increased the farmland area, improved farmland quality, and added more contiguous land. At the same time, after the sub-farm managers contracted for management, more work brought more pay and more output brought more gain; they had technical and experiential advantages in grain planting, and combined with intensive cultivation, yield increases were guaranteed.