An Analysis of Henan's Modern Agriculture Development Path

The "13th Five-Year Plan" period is the decisive stage for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, and also a crucial period for Henan to basically form a major pattern of modernization and make the Central Plains even more splendid. As a major agricultural province, how to accelerate the filling of the "shortcomings" of agriculture while advancing the synchronization of the four modernizations is both of great significance and an arduous task. We must adhere to the development concepts of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing, clearly recognize the situation, find the right path, accelerate the deepening of reform, effectively solve development problems, cultivate development advantages, scientifically guide the rapid development of modern agriculture, and blaze a Henan path of modern agriculture.

The Main Problems Facing Our Province's Modern Agriculture Development

At present, our province's agricultural modernization development is facing some rare opportunities and its own advantages, but at the same time our province's modern agriculture development will also face many problems and challenges: First, in the overall economy, the process of world economic recovery is difficult and tortuous, China's macroeconomic stable operation faces a complex and severe situation, unstable and uncertain factors affecting "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" are increasing, and the difficulty of maintaining sustained and healthy agricultural development is growing. Second, the structural contradictions in agricultural production are becoming increasingly prominent, and the phenomenon of "not much of the good, not good of the much" in agricultural product supply is widespread; adjusting structure, transforming the development model, improving quality and increasing efficiency are becoming increasingly urgent, and breaking through the problem is difficult. Third, the upward momentum of agricultural production costs is hard to contain, it is still relatively difficult to realize high quality and good prices for agricultural products, and the growth of agricultural operating income is narrowing; industrial development is slowing down, and the growth of farmers' wage income is limited; rural reform has entered deep water, farmers' property income is difficult to realize, and the difficulty of promoting sustained increases in farmers' income is growing. Fourth, behind years of consecutive grain increases and the continued positive momentum of agriculture, various production factors have already been stretched very tight, the "red light" of resources and the environment has begun to light up, and agriculture shows new characteristics such as resource shortages and tightening ecological and environmental constraints; the restrictive factors of agricultural production are increasing and intertwining with one another, complex and changeable; the heavily used inputs such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides and agricultural film bring serious non-point source pollution and white pollution, seriously endangering the improvement of agricultural product production capacity and quality safety; in some areas the groundwater level has dropped markedly, posing a threat to the sustainable development of agriculture, and the traditional methods of agricultural production, operation and resource utilization can no longer be sustained. Fifth, how to coordinate the relationship between the heavy responsibility of food security our province shoulders and the development of high-efficiency agriculture, especially such difficult problems as the inversion of international and domestic prices in grain production, the squeeze of the cost floor and the price ceiling, the structural imbalance of supply and demand of some agricultural products, and the achievement of stable and increased grain production from a high starting point - this is a threshold that our province's modern agriculture development path cannot bypass.

Leading Henan's New Development of Modern Agriculture with New Concepts

Take the concept of integrated development of the three industries as a key to solving the new predicament of county-level rural economic development. Underdeveloped county economies, lack of vitality in industrial development, difficulty in raising the level of urbanization, and vitality of factors awaiting activation are common problems currently encountered in county economic development. And agriculture has always been the main industry below the county level. Due to the weak and low-efficiency nature of agriculture, it is very difficult for agriculture alone to escape the economic "trough" state. The integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries must have agriculture as its foundation, and at the same time link the three in succession, greatly expanding the value-added space of agriculture and the field of industrial development. Some successful cases of integrated development of the three industries have fully demonstrated the value function of this development model. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, all localities should strive to build a rural industrial integration pattern with a complete chain, complementary functions, rich formats and closely linked interests, promote the integrated development of rural industries, and let farmers share the value-added benefits of the industrial chain. Or, relying on products, innovatively develop contract farming, encourage leading enterprises and farmers' cooperatives to provide farmers with services such as technical training, loan guarantees and insurance assistance, develop industrial chain finance, carry out joint marketing, and build joint brands. Or, relying on industries, implement the "hundred counties, thousand townships, ten thousand villages" pilot demonstration project for rural industrial integration, build a number of pilot demonstration counties (cities) for the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas and agricultural industrialization demonstration bases, and promote the clustering and agglomeration of specialized and large-scale production entities with leading enterprises and supporting service enterprises. Or, relying on property rights, advance the pilot of land management rights being contributed as shares to develop agricultural industrialization, and let farmers share value-added benefits through forms such as "guaranteed base return + dividends". Or, relying on industry-city integration, explore effective ways to combine rural industrial integration development with new urbanization, and guide the secondary and tertiary industries to concentrate in county seats, key townships and industrial parks. Or, relying on industry-village integration, carry out the construction of characteristic villages and towns, and build small towns with local characteristics.

Take advancing agricultural supply-side reform as the fundamental measure to stimulate the internal driving force of agriculture. The core of supply-side structural reform is to actively adapt to changes in market demand, optimize the allocation of production factors, improve total factor productivity, better adapt to and satisfy consumer demand, and promote sustained and healthy economic and social development. As far as agriculture is concerned, the focus of supply-side structural reform is "transforming the development model, adjusting the structure, reducing costs, filling shortcomings, and promoting integration", that is, transforming the agricultural development model, adjusting and optimizing the structure of agricultural production capacity, reducing various costs of agricultural production, circulation and sales, filling various shortcomings such as weak farmland infrastructure and limited resources and environment, extending the agricultural industrial chain, broadening the agricultural value chain, promoting the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas, and realizing the transformation and upgrading of agricultural development and improvement of quality and efficiency.

In light of our province's actual conditions, the supply-side structural reform of agriculture must first ensure ration security, that is, wheat and rice production; this is the premise, but it is also necessary to change from the past excessive emphasis on high yield to emphasis on optimization, quality and efficiency. Second is to adapt to market demand, reducing what should be reduced and optimizing what should be optimized, such as appropriately reducing corn planting, actively developing strong-gluten and weak-gluten high-quality special-purpose wheat that meets enterprise processing standards, high-quality oil-use and edible peanuts segmented by the market, especially high-oleic peanuts with broad market prospects, and high-quality forage such as alfalfa and whole-plant silage corn, and developing according to local conditions the production of characteristic agricultural products such as high-quality dried and fresh fruits, protected melons and vegetables, high-mountain cool vegetables, and edible fungi. In livestock breeding, actively promote the development of grass-fed animal husbandry dominated by cattle and sheep, and actively combine with crop farming to develop circular agriculture. Thereby promote the shift of agricultural production from being mainly quantity-based to placing equal emphasis on quantity and quality, paying more attention to efficiency and market orientation, and strive to increase the supply of green, safe, high-quality and excellent agricultural products and increase the supply of characteristic agricultural products. Third is to strive to advance the province's agriculture toward a directional pattern of regionalized layout, large-scale operation, standardized production and industrialized development, so as to accelerate the construction of the province's new industrial system, production system and operation system of modern agriculture, and achieve the reform goals of transforming the development model, reducing costs, filling shortcomings and promoting integration. Fourth is to vigorously support innovation in industrial models and marketing models, which is crucial to the high-quality development of the agricultural product structure. In the cultivation of new agricultural entities, the value of high-quality agricultural products cannot be reasonably and effectively realized, which has become the key to the high-quality development of agriculture; in the agricultural product market, "bad money driving out good money" is still a common phenomenon, and only through effective and suitable industrial models or marketing models can the high quality and good price of agricultural products be reflected.

Achieving a New Leap in Development with Three Major Projects as the Starting Point

The first is the "Hundred, Thousand, Ten Thousand" project. The Hundred, Thousand, Ten Thousand project is the main starting point for implementing the strategy of the core grain-producing area, a trump card of Henan, and also a major advantage of Henan. At present, the province's grain production has achieved 12 consecutive increases, and summer grain has achieved 13 consecutive increases, creating a miracle in the history of grain production. But to achieve sustained bumper harvests and new highs from a high starting point, the difficulty is self-evident. Therefore, the focus of grain production in the future should be placed on transforming the development model and exploring effective ways or models for sustained and stable grain growth, including adjustment of breeding objectives, integrated application of technology, cultivation of new entities, and optimization of subsidy policies. Particularly important is to, in accordance with the requirements of supply-side structural reform, forcefully advance the deep integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries of the grain industry, adopt forms such as alliance, merger and reorganization, cultivate entities for the integrated development of the grain industry, make them bigger and stronger, reverse the situation of "strong wheat, weak flour", and comprehensively raise the level of integrated industrial development of Henan's grain, especially wheat.

The second is the project for cultivating modern agricultural industrialization clusters. As far as the development of the cluster itself is concerned, it is necessary to change from being driven by a single leading enterprise to being driven by a cluster of leading enterprises, continuously lengthen the industrial chain, realize the gradual matching of many links such as processing, transportation, warehousing and sales, integrate agricultural pre-production, in-production and post-production into one, and form an operating group with close upstream and downstream collaboration, a relatively complete industrial chain, strong radiating and driving capacity, and comprehensive benefits reaching a certain scale. And through cluster cultivation, build a number of agricultural science and technology support platforms and cultivate a number of branded agricultural enterprises.

The third is the urban ecological agriculture development project. Urban ecological agriculture is an important type of modern agriculture, a comprehensive and efficient modern agriculture integrating production, life and ecology, and can effectively drive the two-way flow of urban and rural resources and realize harmonious coexistence between urban and rural areas. The construction of urban ecological agriculture completes and perfects the content of Henan's modern agriculture and is indispensable. As far as the current actual situation is concerned, there are many problems in urban ecological agriculture, the most important of which are: first, being restricted by land policy, which greatly constrains the construction and function of urban ecological agriculture; second, the continuous rise in costs such as land transfer and labor, which causes many urban ecological agriculture operations to have difficulty making profits, or even to be unsustainable, affecting the subsequent development of urban ecological agriculture; third, limited financing channels and relatively high risk of capital chain rupture. Therefore, in planning the development of urban ecological agriculture, a special development plan for urban ecological agriculture must be produced as soon as possible to correctly guide and direct the development of urban ecological agriculture. All localities should closely combine resource conditions, actively explore suitable models for urban ecological agriculture development, and explore development paths and models such as "agricultural complexes" and "citizen farms" that integrate industry and city and integrate industry and village, so as to seek solutions for breaking through the problems of urban ecological agriculture development.