Mr. Yuan Longping said: the money subsidizing oil should be taken and given to farmers as subsidies, and the grain purchase price should rise to 2 yuan.

Mr. Yuan's original intention in saying this was to raise farmers' incomes. One reason is the sentiment of an older-generation breeder who stands up for farmers, and the other is the consideration of stimulating farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain so as to safeguard national food security. Once again, respect to him and to all agricultural practitioners who, carrying the aspiration to change farmers' fate, face the yellow earth with their backs to the sky and still refuse to give up.

But regarding Mr. Yuan's remark, I want to express three points:

First, the purpose of raising the grain purchase price to 2 yuan.

If we simply want to rely on a rise to 2 yuan to significantly raise the living standards of the broad masses of farmers, that is clearly not very realistic. With rising prices, rising prices of means of production, and rising housing prices, a grain price rise from 1.5 yuan to 2 yuan is obviously a drop in the bucket. For farmers who live off a tiny plot of land, they still live at the very bottom of society.

If we want to rely on raising grain prices to stimulate farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain, that is also not very realistic. Let us look at a set of data: since the abolition of the agricultural tax and the increase in grain-growing subsidies, the grain price (wheat) rose from 1400 yuan per ton in 2006 to about 2300 yuan per ton at present. Corresponding to this is precisely the increase in idle land in recent years due to the "double cropping to single cropping" change in rice, and abandoned land developing from poor-grade fields to good-grade fields. If we rely tightly on raising the price by 0.5 yuan to change the status quo, the effect is obviously not great.

Second, why take the money subsidizing oil to subsidize farmers.

In an interview, Mr. Yuan said that people driving cars outside are all wealthy people, so it is fine if gasoline is a bit more expensive, but farmers' incomes are too low. From this we can also see that Mr. Yuan, like me, has a simple idealist notion of robbing the rich to help the poor and egalitarianism. Of course, this is just a metaphor; the key emphasis is that the state should increase subsidies for farmers' incomes, and only secondarily that it should not vigorously develop the oil and automobile industries. So whether it is taking the money subsidizing oil or taking money subsidizing other places, calling on society and calling on the state to attach importance to agriculture is Mr. Yuan's true purpose.

Third, how can farmers' incomes be raised.

Income improvement is tied to price and cost. Reducing costs and raising prices can both increase income. As a metaphor, why could hybrid rice be promoted on a large scale? The most important reason is that the breeding cost of hybrid rice was greatly reduced. By using a male-sterile parent (if male sterile, no artificial emasculation is needed) as the female parent, and one with good combining ability as the male parent, selecting the high-yielding first filial generation gives the hybrid seed we can buy on the market.

Facing conditions such as China's large population and limited land, safeguarding food security, increasing production costs, and the continuous emergence of people abandoning farming for industrial work, raising farmers' incomes is bound to be a necessary and arduous process. We should see that the continuous implementation of many measures, such as abolishing the agricultural tax, continuously increasing agricultural science and technology, guiding land transfer, promoting modern agricultural technology, subsidizing the purchase of agricultural machinery, and continuously standardizing the seed industry market, will open one door after another for raising farmers' incomes. Here once again I admire Mr. Yuan's sentiment of caring for agriculture, rural areas, and farmers, and once again call on the state and society to further support and invest in raising farmers' incomes.

This is Science Revitalizing Agriculture. You are welcome to add a follow and learn together with us.