Make brand building a major strategy for upgrading modern agriculture
Theoretical research and practical exploration of agricultural brand building in China have made great progress, and managers, builders and consumers have reached an increasing consensus. Brand building has become an important path for advancing agricultural modernization and regional economic development, has become the core operating strategy of new agricultural business entities, has become an important guarantee for food safety to win consumer trust, and has also become the new normal for accelerating agricultural modernization.
Viewed from the overall process of China's modernization, implementing an agricultural brand strategy is an inherent requirement of advancing agricultural modernization. Agricultural modernization remains the weak link and constraining factor in the synchronized development of the “four modernizations.” Modernized agriculture should be resource-saving and environment-friendly agriculture, should be agriculture equipped with modern science and technology and information technology, and should also be agriculture with prominent comparative advantages in products and relatively strong market competitiveness. As an agricultural brand, it is first of all a model of the application of agricultural science and technology and the scientific use of resources. In this sense, modernized agriculture can also be described as agriculture clustered with brands; without the branding of agriculture, and without a large number of agricultural brands with high scientific and technological content and strong competitiveness as representatives, it would be hard to say that agriculture has achieved modernization. Therefore, implementing an agricultural brand strategy is an inherent requirement of accelerating agricultural modernization and a major measure concerning the overall situation of China's economic and social development and the entire modernization process. Under the market environment of deepening reform, the modern agricultural pattern of large-scale production, large markets, large-scale circulation and large brands is taking shape at a faster pace, and will certainly bring a brand-new development environment for agricultural brand building.
Viewed from the practice of China's modern agricultural development, implementing an agricultural brand strategy is the main path and direction for strengthening agriculture's advantageous and distinctive industries. China has a vast territory, diverse natural ecology and resource endowments, and the foundations of agricultural industry development also differ from place to place; but from the actual situation of development, regions with a higher level of agricultural modernization are often also regions where brand agriculture develops faster and where agricultural product brands are concentrated. Brand building involves multiple links in production and the market, is a powerful driving force for optimizing the structure of the agricultural industry and raising the modernization level of distinctive industries, and is an important lever for advancing modern agriculture and the development of distinctive industries. When inspecting Shandong last year, President Xi Jinping pointed out that in a place's development, the key lies in finding the right path and highlighting its distinctive features. For underdeveloped countries and regions to pursue development, they must all the more base themselves on resource endowments and industrial foundations, do a good job in the article on distinctive features, and achieve differentiated competition and displaced development. China's unique natural ecological environment, farming and breeding methods, and cultural history have, over thousands of years, formed numerous distinctive agricultural products. These distinctive agricultural resources are not only the creation of nature, but also a precious historical legacy, containing enormous economic, social and cultural value. We can absolutely, by implementing an agricultural brand strategy, integrate these elements and resources that combine culture, ecology and environment, so that they become an important vehicle for the sustainable economic and social development of a place and the main channel for protecting and developing the economic resources of distinctive agriculture.
Viewed from the angle of transforming the agricultural development model, implementing an agricultural brand strategy is an important driving force for promoting sustainable agricultural development. Transforming the agricultural development model is the fundamental way out for breaking through resource and environmental constraints and achieving sustainable development. Agriculture is an industry highly dependent on resource conditions and directly affecting the natural environment, and the way agriculture uses resources has an important impact on achieving sustainable development. As is well known, good agricultural resources and environment are the source of the quality of agricultural products, are the natural demand of the market and consumers, are an indispensable element of brand building, and are an effective way for some countries to build agricultural brands and even cultural brands. Faced with the current problems in China's agricultural development, such as a relatively extensive development model and intensified local resource waste and pollution, only by transforming the development model, accelerating the development of green, high-quality and brand agriculture, improving the efficiency of resource and input use, and giving play to the multifunctionality of agriculture, can we break through resource and environmental constraints and achieve sustainable development.
Viewed from the experience of international agricultural development, implementing an agricultural brand strategy is almost the common practice by which the world's agricultural powers win international competitive advantages in agriculture. One important reason why France has been able to become an agricultural power and a major brand agriculture country in Europe and even the world is that it is good at giving play to agriculture's comparative advantages and vigorously advancing the brand building of distinctive agricultural products and intellectual property protection. To adapt to the new situation of economic globalization, it is necessary to promote the mutual reinforcement of agriculture's opening to the outside world and its opening domestically, better combine bringing in and going out, promote the orderly and free flow of international and domestic factors and the deep integration of markets, and accelerate the cultivation of new advantages in participating in and leading international economic cooperation and competition. Implementing an agricultural brand strategy is a strategic choice for responding to international competition, a mechanism by which international trade forces China's agriculture to transform and upgrade, an objective requirement for realizing China's agricultural modernization, and indeed an inevitable path for raising the level of China's international agricultural cooperation. From meeting basic domestic demand to cultivating internationally renowned brands, and demonstrating strong competitiveness through a large number of branded products so as to drive the transformation and upgrading of domestic agriculture and the development of modern agriculture, this is the path China's agricultural development must take.
At present, whether viewed from the macro level of the country's entire modernization drive or from the micro level of the practice of modern agricultural development, implementing a modern agricultural brand strategy has relatively mature conditions. In my view, implementing China's modern agricultural brand strategy can be considered from the following aspects: