China Needs Farmer Professionalization to Advance Agricultural Industrialization and Farmland Intensification
Recently, renowned economist Li Yining stated that in the future Chinese farmers will no longer be an identity, but an occupation; future agricultural practitioners will be farm owners, farmer cooperatives, agricultural enterprises and so on who truly understand agricultural technology, and agricultural planting and production will follow a path of large-scale development.
In the past few years, “urbanization” gradually replaced “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” as the mainstream topic, which means that China has already made urbanization the lever for solving the “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” issue. However, if the land issue is not considered, some problems will also be left behind, such as who will engage in agricultural production? At present, in China's vast rural areas, the vast majority of the post-90s generation has not engaged in agricultural production, nor do they have the skills or interest for agricultural production; the agricultural workforce is severely aging, with no one to succeed them.
Therefore, farmer professionalization seems to be the only choice: farmers will no longer be a political identity in a dualistic society, but an occupation, and agricultural production will also achieve specialization and modernization. However, given that land is still under the household contract responsibility system, that is, land is still based on a smallholder economy, this prospect is still very distant. Nevertheless, in the plains of the north suitable for mechanized cultivation and harvesting, most areas long ago achieved modernization of grain crop production, and those who own machinery and charge fees to cultivate and harvest for others can also be regarded as the prototype of professional farmers.
The modern market economy negates the “smallholder economy.” Although China's grain cultivation is very stable (because when land scale is very small and labor is very expensive, growing other crops is uneconomical), smallholder-style pig farming often shows cyclical oversupply due to the “cobweb effect,” revealing the contradiction between small production and a large market. If in the era of the planned economy the principle of land to the tiller was because cities could not provide enough employment, then now the large-scale flow of rural population to cities is already a fact, and this household-based agricultural “contract system” will be dissolved.
The foundation of the smallholder economy is the family. In the process of moving from an agricultural society to an industrial society, rural families gradually disintegrate; in almost every family someone works and is employed in the city. Therefore, many so-called “farmers” have in fact already become people waiting for employment, rather than people engaged in agriculture. In fact, fewer and fewer people are engaged in agriculture, which means that China will develop a demand for professionalized “modern farmers.”
The current problem is whether, after the disintegration of the rural household “smallholder economy,” China has the capacity to arrange rural areas, agriculture and farmers according to the logic of an industrial society. The greatest challenge among these is whether the state can provide enough jobs and give them urban resident status when farmers become individual job-seekers rather than members of a household economy. At present, a large number of young people in rural areas are doing odd jobs, semi-fixed work or are unemployed; they have no experience, ability or interest in agricultural production, and are in an “unstable” state. Therefore, in addition to providing them with jobs, the most important thing is how to incorporate them into a new type of social organization, rather than letting them wander on the margins of society, unable to move forward and unable to retreat.
Another challenge lies in agriculture. When household-based agricultural production declines and agriculture urgently needs industrialization, whether the Chinese government is prepared for land reform that encourages farmland intensification, as well as the challenges of technology and organizational forms brought by large-scale cultivation. At least for now, these questions remain to be answered; currently the approach remains mainly at the stage of encouraging household grain cultivation through fiscal subsidies, and land reform has not yet been launched.
In addition, rural areas may become settlement areas for the rural weak (the elderly and children). If farmers become further professionalized and farmland further intensified, then how rural communities of the weak should be organized will become a problem. We cannot ignore rural areas simply because they are bound to decline; we must find a solution. In these respects, Japan has provided us with experience. Japan long ago completed its evolution from an agricultural society to an industrial society, but at present Japan's agricultural workforce is decreasing year by year and aging at an accelerating pace. Japan has therefore actively taken measures to cultivate professional farmers, establish a complete agricultural education system, and provide various services and assistance to agricultural successors.
China should actively transition toward agricultural modernization and farmer professionalization; only by taking the initiative can it resolve contradictions and problems. First, it should actively promote the industrialization of agriculture and the intensification of farmland, laying a foundation for large-scale agriculture and professional farmers, and further learn from Japan's experience by developing rural vocational education, cultivating new-type farmers, and at the same time attracting talent from outside rural areas to engage in agriculture; second, raise the level of social organization among young farmers, help them find better employment and live stable lives in cities, and improve social security and various public services for the rural elderly, so that rural areas do not become a lost land.