How to effectively solve the problem of who will farm the land
The 13th Five-Year Plan period is the decisive stage for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and also a critical period for accelerating agricultural modernization. At present, the problem of "who will farm the land" is realistically placed before us. Only by accelerating the cultivation of new-type professional farmers and forming a high-quality contingent of agricultural operators and managers as quickly as possible can we shoulder the historic task of building modern agriculture.
I. Advancing agricultural modernization urgently requires accelerating the cultivation of new-type professional farmers
Correctly understanding and handling the peasant issue has always been a strategic issue. As the largest social group, farmers are both the foundation of China's agricultural modernization and the future of the socialist new countryside. As the main body of developing modern agriculture, the professionalization of farmers is an important indicator of agricultural modernization. "New-type professional farmers + new-type agricultural operating entities + large-scale operation" is the basic direction of China's modern agricultural development. At the current stage, improving farmers' scientific literacy and cultivating new-type professional farmers is an inevitable choice for promoting modern agricultural development and a key measure for solving the problem of "who will farm the land."
At the Central Rural Work Conference held at the end of 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly expounded on the problem of "who will farm the land," emphasizing the need to focus on attracting young people to engage in farming and cultivating professional farmers, establish specialized policy mechanisms, and build a contingent of professional farmers. In April 2016, at the rural reform symposium held in Xiaogang Village, Anhui, General Secretary Xi Jinping once again emphasized the need to accelerate the building of a contingent of professional farmers and form a high-quality contingent of agricultural operators and managers. Since 2012, five consecutive No. 1 Central Documents have made major deployments for cultivating new-type professional farmers. In particular, the 2016 No. 1 Central Document clearly proposed making professional farmers the leading force in building modern agriculture. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions and the deployments of the No. 1 Central Documents fully demonstrate the strategic position of cultivating new-type professional farmers in the development of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. Governments at all levels must persistently and solidly carry out the cultivation of new-type professional farmers to fundamentally solve the problem of "who will farm the land."
From the perspective of the overall modernization effort, cultivating new-type professional farmers is a strategic issue concerning the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects. "Whether it is moderate prosperity or not, the key lies with our rural compatriots." The focus and difficulty of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects lie with farmers, and the most arduous and heaviest tasks are in rural areas. "For farmers to achieve moderate prosperity, their incomes must keep rising." Although China's farmers' incomes have continued to grow in recent years and the relative urban-rural income gap has narrowed somewhat, the absolute gap has continued to widen. In 2015, the per capita disposable income of urban residents was 31,195 yuan, while that of rural residents was only 11,422 yuan, a difference of nearly 20,000 yuan. Moreover, farmers' social security level is low and their access to public services is limited. To a large extent, being a farmer is still a "status" label rather than a respectable profession. At present, there is an urgent need to accelerate the cultivation of new-type professional farmers, turn more and more farmers into specialized large-scale farmers, family farm operators, cooperative leaders, and agricultural enterprise backbone personnel, and through vigorously promoting various forms of appropriately scaled operations, improve agricultural operating efficiency, make agriculture an industry with prospects, and make farming a respectable profession.
On the whole, the quality of China's agricultural laborers is a prominent problem at present and is still difficult to adapt to the needs of modern agricultural development, becoming a bottleneck constraining the "synchronization of the four modernizations." First, the number is shrinking. Statistics show that the number of migrant workers transferred out of agricultural production in China has reached 277 million, and it is still growing at a rate of several million per year. Farmers engaged in farming, especially young and middle-aged farmers, have decreased sharply. Second, the structure is imbalanced. Among farmers remaining in rural areas, the elderly and women make up the majority. In Zhejiang and Jiangsu, the average age of farmers engaged in farming has reached 57. Third, the quality is worrying. Among farmers engaged in farming, those with primary school and junior high school education account for more than 70 percent. The proportion of farmers with basic scientific literacy is only 1.7 percent, far below the national average of 6.2 percent. Fourth, there is a lack of successors. The vast majority of the new generation of rural laborers choose to "leap out of the farm gate," and farmers engaged in farming have become a "low-lying area" in the nation's human quality. Due to labor quality problems, high-efficiency agricultural facilities and equipment are difficult to utilize, and high-level agricultural scientific and technological achievements are difficult to transform.
The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Outline of the 13th Five-Year Plan both clearly proposed that obvious progress must be made in agricultural modernization by 2020. China's agriculture is at a critical period of transforming its development model and adjusting its structure. Advancing agricultural modernization faces severe challenges, and the tasks are extremely arduous. We must intensify efforts to cultivate new-type professional farmers, actively promote the professionalization of farmers engaged in farming, and accelerate the building of a high-quality contingent of modern agricultural operators and managers, so as to provide a solid human resource foundation and guarantee for agricultural modernization.
II. Initial results have been achieved in cultivating new-type professional farmers in China
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee and the State Council, in response to the needs of agricultural modernization, have treated accelerating the cultivation of new-type professional farmers as a strategic task, and initial results have begun to show in promoting modern agricultural construction. In accordance with the deployments of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, various localities have improved cultivation systems, strengthened system building, and increased funding input in light of actual conditions, focusing on improving the overall framework system for cultivating new-type professional farmers. A large number of new-type professional farmers have emerged.
The work pattern for cultivating new-type professional farmers has basically taken shape. In 2012, China launched pilot work on cultivating new-type professional farmers nationwide. In 2014, it launched and implemented the new-type professional farmer cultivation project. In 2015, it launched and implemented the modern young farmer training plan. Under the guidance of central policies and the promotion of national pilot demonstrations, Party committees and governments at all levels have attached great importance to the cultivation of new-type professional farmers, listed it as a key task in agriculture and rural areas, continuously increased fiscal input, implemented support policies, refined work requirements, and promoted in-depth pilot demonstrations. At present, 4 provinces, 21 cities, and 487 counties across the country have established relatively complete demonstration training systems for new-type professional farmers, initially forming a work pattern for cultivating new-type professional farmers featuring government promotion, departmental coordination, industry-driven development, and farmers' initiative.
The institutional framework for cultivating new-type professional farmers has basically been established. In the cultivation process, education and training are upheld as the focus, standardized management as an important means, and policy support as an important guarantee, vigorously supporting professional farmers in starting businesses and developing enterprises. In terms of cultivation targets, the focus is on production-and-operation-type professional farmers such as specialized large-scale farmers, family farm operators, cooperative leaders, and agricultural enterprise backbone personnel, while also taking into account professional-skill-type and professional-service-type professional farmers. In terms of cultivation models, "one point, two lines, full-process segmentation" training is implemented, that is, taking industrial development as the foothold, taking the improvement of production skills and operation and management levels as the two main lines, and arranging centralized training in stages according to key links in agricultural production, so as to achieve full coverage of the industrial cycle. In terms of cultivation levels, reliance is mainly on agriculture-related vocational colleges and agricultural radio and television schools to carry out secondary vocational and higher vocational education for new-type professional farmers. After nearly three years of exploration and practice, China has basically established an institutional framework for cultivating new-type professional farmers featuring the "trinity" of education and training, standardized management, and policy support; the "three-category coordination" of production-and-operation-type, professional-skill-type, and professional-service-type; and the "three-level connectivity" of primary, intermediate, and advanced.
The education and training system for new-type professional farmers is being accelerated. Based on actual conditions, various localities have actively brought into play the roles of agricultural radio and television schools, agriculture-related colleges, scientific research and extension institutions, and enterprises and social organizations, forming a "one main body, multiple participants" education and training system for new-type professional farmers with agricultural radio and television schools as the main body and the participation of multiple forces, and exploring many experiences and practices with distinctive features, remarkable results, and strong representativeness. Some localities rely on agriculture-related colleges to establish professional farmer colleges and create a new-type professional farmer training model of "academic qualifications + skills + entrepreneurship." Some localities rely on farmers' cooperatives and agricultural enterprises to build farmer field schools, allowing the cultivation of new-type professional farmers to enter and serve industries. Other localities rely on leading agricultural enterprises to carry out farmer education and training directly in the fields. At the national level, five major vocational education groups have been established: China Modern Agriculture, Modern Animal Husbandry, Modern Fisheries, Modern Agricultural Equipment, and Urban Agriculture. Through industry-education integration, they explore effective paths for cultivating high-skilled agricultural talent, modern young farmers, and various other types of new-type professional farmers.