Agricultural machinery cooperatives pass through three gates, providing full "nanny-style" service

Socialized agricultural machinery services are the mainstream in promoting agricultural mechanization, and agricultural machinery cooperatives are the leading force in delivering socialized agricultural machinery services. Today, new types of agricultural business entities such as large grain growers, family farm owners and farmers' professional cooperatives are constantly emerging, and in the course of developing agricultural mechanization services, agricultural machinery cooperatives are merging and interpenetrating with these new types of agricultural business entities, presenting 3 different development models and showing the characteristics of staged, progressive development: first, purely engaging in full-process “nanny-style” service, which is called the “first gate”; second, while engaging in agricultural mechanization services, leasing land to develop crop farming, livestock farming and deep processing of agricultural products, which is called the “second gate”; third, using land as equity to seek a breakthrough in the mode of operation, which is called the “third gate”.

Full-process “nanny-style” service

When the reporter walked into Heping Village, Modian Community, Hefei City, Anhui Province, 70-year-old Han Yonggang was leisurely watching an agricultural machinery operator work in his own field, hands clasped behind his back. He told the reporter that this year his family planted 700 mu of land and signed a full-process agricultural machinery operation service contract with a farmers' professional cooperative, under which the cooperative is responsible for the entire process of cultivation and harvesting and also provides high-quality, low-priced agricultural inputs such as seeds, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. “I only need to do a good job of planning the farming and routine field management. Everything else is left to the cooperative to handle, and I just wait for the harvest. This not only solves the problem of rural labor shortage, but also makes it possible to sow on time and harvest on time. Farming is becoming easier and easier.” Han Yonggang said.

The one who signed the full-process agricultural mechanization service contract with Han Yonggang is the Tianzihe Farmers' Professional Cooperative in Dali Village, Yangdian Township, Feidong County, Anhui Province. Cooperative chairman Wang Jinsong told the reporter that with so much labor going out now, how to farm the land and who will farm it are real problems facing rural areas. In particular, as land transfer speeds up and large grain growers emerge in large numbers, they generally face problems such as low planting technology, low field management levels and insufficient funds, and they have a huge demand for socialized agricultural machinery services. Wang Jinsong said he previously engaged in agricultural input distribution and began transforming in 2013, establishing the Tianzihe Farmers' Professional Cooperative and setting up a full-process agricultural mechanization service team. He purchased more than 10 sets of agricultural machinery himself and also integrated a large amount of idle agricultural machinery in Feidong County to provide farmers with full-process “nanny-style” agricultural machinery operation services featuring unified cultivation, unified seed supply, unified seedling raising, unified field management and unified harvesting, which is deeply welcomed by local large grain growers.

Guo Zichao, vice president of the China Agricultural Mechanization Association, believes that this “nanny-style” socialized agricultural machinery service organization is a comprehensive service organization mainly engaged in socialized agricultural machinery services, carrying out order operations such as substitute cultivation, substitute planting and substitute harvesting, and some also “entrust” the land, using agricultural machinery services to drive the operation of agricultural inputs such as seeds, seedlings, pesticides and chemical fertilizers, with a very broad service field. This kind of service organization adapts to the current rural reality, helps promote rural land transfer, and fundamentally solves the difficulties faced by large grain growers, namely the rural labor shortage and insufficient agricultural machinery, so support should be increased.

Second gate:

Leasing land to extend the industry

Yuan Dongsheng, a family farm owner in Jianshang Village, Xiangshan Township, Chongren County, Jiangxi Province, while operating more than 400 mu of his own rice, also organized and established the Fengxiang Agricultural Machinery Professional Cooperative, organizing more than 130 nearby agricultural machinery operators to join the cooperative. The cooperative owns more than 100 sets of large and small agricultural machinery and provides nearby farmers with pre-production, mid-production and post-production “one-stop” services such as substitute cultivation, substitute planting and substitute harvesting, meeting farmers' demand for agricultural machinery and promoting the improvement of the local level of agricultural mechanization.

At present, agricultural machinery cooperatives have become the main force in the socialized agricultural machinery service system. It is understood that most agricultural machinery professional cooperatives are still only engaged in simple cultivation, planting and harvesting operations. However, it is difficult to make money relying on agricultural machinery services alone. In order to enhance their capacity for self-development, some cooperatives are continuously broadening their service fields and business scope, extending from links such as cultivation, planting and harvesting of grain crops to links such as cash crops and agricultural product processing, extending from agricultural machinery operation services to land transfer operations and agricultural input, technology and information services, and expanding from traditional crop farming to fields such as animal husbandry, fisheries, forestry and fruit farming and facility agriculture, continuously extending the industrial chain and improving market competitiveness.

The Wanxin Modern Agricultural Machinery Cooperative in Shanqian Village, Gongzhuling City, Jilin Province, is trying to expand its business scope and strengthen its own capacity to generate income. Chairman Xue Yaohui told the reporter that their cooperative owns 60 sets of large agricultural machinery and engages in socialized agricultural machinery services. This year the agricultural machinery operation area reached 1700 hectares. The profit from agricultural machinery services is thin. In order to develop, they lease land to develop crop farming and livestock farming. This year they planted 617 hectares of corn and also plan to raise 500 beef cattle, using corn stalks as feed and cattle manure as fertilizer, initially forming a circular agricultural industrial chain. Xue Yaohui believes that the agricultural industrial chain is very long and has huge development potential. The cooperative plans to develop grain drying and storage operations and develop organic fertilizer and corn deep processing industries to lead farmers to common prosperity.

Third gate:

Land as equity to seek a breakthrough

However, leasing land to develop crop farming and livestock farming makes it difficult to stimulate farmers' enthusiasm for transferring land, which has also led to deep-seated contradictions and problems in the development of agricultural machinery cooperatives, such as small areas of large-scale land operation and low returns from substitute cultivation operations. Now, some agricultural machinery cooperatives are seeking changes in their mode of operation. The modern agricultural machinery cooperative in Anquan Village, Kedong County, Heilongjiang Province, relies on farmers joining the cooperative with land and secondary distribution of returns to solve these problems and promote the healthy and sustainable development of modern agricultural machinery cooperatives.

The modern agricultural machinery cooperative in Anquan Village, Changsheng Township, Kedong County, Heilongjiang Province, was formerly the Laohe Agricultural Machinery Cooperative, which mainly engaged in agricultural machinery services and did not have very good economic returns. In 2012, they changed to a corn planting cooperative and rented more than 5000 mu of land, with six or seven households in the village joining with land as equity, and that year they achieved very good economic returns, and the farmer shareholders also received dividends. Chairman He Chengchun said that as the scale of land operation expanded, the cooperative's own agricultural machinery could no longer meet the demand for agricultural machinery operations. In 2013, they took over as a whole a modern agricultural machinery cooperative in a neighboring village that had a large amount of agricultural machinery but was in operational difficulty, and renamed it the Anquan Village Modern Agricultural Machinery Cooperative. Now, the cooperative has 32,000 mu of land under cultivation, more than 60 sets of large and small agricultural machinery, and has also installed 1 grain drying tower with a daily drying capacity of 200 tons and built a grain warehouse with a storage capacity of 20,000 tons. Under the existing mode of operation, farmers join with land as equity, and the cooperative uses its scale advantage to develop contract farming, achieving very good economic returns.

Guo Zichao believes that new types of agricultural business entities plus socialized agricultural machinery services are the direction of modern agricultural development. In the process of transition from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, socialized agricultural machinery services have broad prospects, and the emergence of various organizations engaged in socialized agricultural machinery services has promoted the improvement of the regional level of agricultural mechanization and the development of modern agriculture. Therefore, we should speed up the construction of a three-dimensional composite modern agricultural operation system based on household family operations, linked by cooperation and association, and supported by socialized services.