A Detailed Explanation of the Internal Logic Between New-Type Urbanization and Agricultural Modernization
New-type urbanization is a critical reworking of the traditional model of urban development; it is not simply an increase in the proportion of urban population and an expansion of urban area, but rather the realization of a transition from “rural” to “urban” in terms of industrial support, living environment, social security, and lifestyle. Under the development requirement of “synchronizing the four modernizations,” agricultural modernization is a comprehensive system that includes three aspects: the modernization of the agricultural industry, the modernization of professional farmers, and the modernization of rural society, that is, a comprehensive system aimed at resolving the “three rural issues.” The internal logical connection between new-type urbanization and agricultural modernization is mainly embodied in three aspects.
Complementary Factors
Capital, labor, land, technology, information, management, and other factors are necessary conditions for advancing economic and social development. From the perspective of the supply and demand structure of factors, new-type urbanization and agricultural modernization have a close complementary relationship. On the one hand, agricultural modernization provides a source of factors for new-type urbanization. First, labor employment comes from the labor overflow of agricultural modernization. Second, construction land comes from the accumulation of agricultural land through agricultural modernization. Since agricultural land is one of the essential conditions for food production and farmers' income growth, the scarcity and exclusivity of land determine that only by taking the path of agricultural modernization can the balance be ensured between the land supply for new-type urbanization and national food security and farmers' income growth.
On the other hand, new-type urbanization provides high-quality factor resources for agricultural modernization. First, the material equipment needed for modern agricultural production comes from cities and towns. The secondary industry in cities and towns mainly provides hardware services for agriculture such as infrastructure, machinery and equipment, and agricultural materials. Second, the agricultural science and technology needed for modern agriculture comes from cities and towns. Finally, the management concepts needed for modern agriculture come from cities and towns. The institutional design of modern agricultural production, such as organizational forms, business models, and guarantee systems, likewise emerges from the accumulated experience of commerce, industry, and services. The path of new-type urbanization can overcome the negative impact of traditional urbanization on agricultural development and provide high-quality factor resources for agricultural modernization.
Interactive Development
New-type urbanization and agricultural modernization have an interactive relationship in their development. On the one hand, new-type urbanization drives agricultural modernization. First, the development of new-type urbanization will promote the transformation of agricultural operation methods. By absorbing surplus rural labor into employment in cities and towns, urbanization will inevitably accelerate rural land circulation, concentrate cultivated land into the hands of large grain-growing households, create conditions for appropriately scaled operations, and thereby advance the specialization, standardization, scaling, and intensification of agricultural production and operation, improving comprehensive agricultural production capacity, risk resistance, and market competitiveness. Second, the development of new-type urbanization will promote the optimization of the agricultural industrial structure. By transforming a large rural population into an urban population, urbanization turns huge potential consumer demand into real consumer demand, which will inevitably drive changes in the market demand structure for agricultural products, pull up the quality and quantity of consumer demand for agricultural products, and thereby optimize the internal industrial structure and product structure of agriculture. Finally, the development of new-type urbanization will inject new vitality into agricultural development. As cities and towns are gathering places for capital, technology, and information, as their scale continues to expand and capital and technology accumulate to a certain extent, they will automatically flow toward the vast rural hinterland based on the role of market mechanisms, providing technical and financial support for the development of agricultural modernization and injecting vitality into development.
On the other hand, agricultural modernization promotes new-type urbanization. First, agricultural development is a prerequisite for the formation of cities and towns. Second, agricultural modernization expands market space for new-type urbanization. Scaled operation and mechanization are the basic features and important foundations of agricultural modernization, and agricultural modernization has enormous demand for industrial products such as agricultural machinery, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides; farmers' prosperity and rural development are important goals of agricultural modernization, and the huge market demand contained in rural areas will powerfully drive the development of the urban industrial system and accelerate urbanization. Finally, agricultural modernization promotes the development of urban social undertakings. As a large amount of surplus agricultural labor transfers to cities and towns, it will powerfully advance the construction and improvement of infrastructure such as housing, transportation, communications, water, and electricity in cities and towns, and drive the development of medical and health care and cultural and educational undertakings.
Mutually Integrated Goals
The value orientation of new-type urbanization and agricultural modernization has a distinct people-oriented character, and in terms of development direction they are two sides of one body, that is, without the development of agricultural modernization the blueprint of new-type urbanization will not be realized, and without taking the path of new-type urbanization the vision of agricultural modernization will not be realized. The goals of the two are highly compatible.
First, urban-rural integration. Breaking the urban-rural dual economic structure and achieving urban-rural integration is the common goal of new-type urbanization and agricultural modernization. The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out: “The integration of urban and rural development is the fundamental way to resolve the ‘three rural issues.’ We must intensify the coordination of urban and rural development and promote common prosperity between urban and rural areas.” To this end, agricultural modernization will achieve breakthroughs in institutional innovation, promote the balanced distribution and two-way flow of factors and resources between urban and rural areas, and gradually realize the development goal of urban-rural integration.
Second, industrial integration. With the development of agricultural modernization and the advancement of new-type urbanization, various production factors will break through the boundaries of region, industry, and urban-rural division, enabling the effective allocation of urban technology, talent, materials, and information with rural land, labor, raw materials, and other resources. Some new industries will emerge, and the boundaries between agriculture and industry and services will become increasingly blurred, tending toward a new realm of industrial integration.
Third, cultural integration. In China, the urban-rural dual economic structure has long been constrained by the urban-rural dual cultural structure. Breaking the urban-rural dual structure fundamentally requires achieving urban-rural cultural integration, and this is precisely one of the development goals of new-type urbanization and agricultural modernization.