Protecting farmers' interests requires the right approach
"Protecting farmers' interests" is a common policy phrase, yet one rarely hears of "protecting workers' interests" or "protecting intellectuals' interests." The vulnerability of farmers reflects the weakness of agriculture. In the media, keywords such as "poverty," "left-behind," and "hollowing out" have also shaped society's consensus of public opinion about rural areas and farmers: there is no worst, only worse.
Why is this so? The answer does not seem hard to find - the long-standing urban-rural dual structure has created a situation in which industrial goods are expensive (in cities) while agricultural products are cheap (in rural areas), namely the so-called "scissors gap." Thus, emotional people call for it to be time for "industry to nurture agriculture and cities to nurture the countryside." Many media outlets follow the same line of thinking, as if "competing over who is more miserable" can win attention and benefits.
However, this may be impossible under the law. After all, everyone is equal before the law, and regardless of occupation, all lawful rights and interests should be protected. Take rural land transfer, for example: there are three standards - "in accordance with the law, voluntary, and compensated." Beyond that, everything must follow market rules - land conditions in Northeast China are good, with rent at 1000 yuan per mu, while land conditions in Guizhou are poor, with rent at 300 yuan per mu. From a legal perspective, "protecting farmers' interests" means providing a legal and market environment of good governance, and absolutely not making land rent nationwide match that of Northeast China. To digress a little, among migrant workers, some earn 5000 yuan a month while others earn only 2000 yuan; income differences are a natural phenomenon, and as long as they comply with laws and regulations, there is no need to overinterpret them.
Therefore, "protecting farmers' interests" refers more to policy bias, such as transfer payments and agricultural support. Premier Li Keqiang's statement to "ensure that fiscal input in agriculture only increases, not decreases" means the same thing. At the level of top-level design, this is hardly objectionable, but when it comes to layered implementation, it begins to change flavor - whenever projects and policies touching on rural areas are implemented, people invariably invoke "protecting farmers' interests," and any opposition or doubt is labeled "disregarding farmers' interests" - seemingly occupying the moral high ground, but in reality blocking channels for reflection on and consultative improvement of policies and projects. Two examples:
First, the minimum purchase prices for rice and wheat. In the short term, minimum purchase prices can indeed protect farmers' interests, but the question is - is such a policy sustainable, and for how long? One must know that policy dividends are not sustainable and will severely erode government credibility. Without rational foresight and contingency plans for adjustment, the consequences could well be disastrous. Take Thailand's former "rice pledging" policy (similar to a minimum purchase price policy): after two years in operation, it not only caused nearly 4.5 billion US dollars in fiscal losses, but also brought the policy embarrassment of high grain prices, high inventories, and high subsidies. And when the policy was finally wrapped up hastily, it was still farmers who were hurt the most.
Second, restrictive measures on sugar imports. At first glance, this also protects the interests of sugarcane growers and protects domestic sugarcane purchase prices. What is the reality? The enthusiasm of sugarcane growers may have increased, but downstream sugar mills should feel demoralized - excessively high purchase prices drained the profits of the sugar processing industry from the very beginning (unless domestic sugar prices were raised accordingly, in which case consumers would again be unhappy). Over time, a situation took shape - sugarcane growers remained tied to the land, continuing to plant sugarcane in excess of demand, while the downstream sugar processing industry struggled and found it hard to sustain itself.
Conversely, what would happen if sugar import restrictions were relaxed or removed? Would it be "self-destruction," as some people say? We can refer to the import situation of China's soybeans, cotton, and yarn. First, soybean and cotton cultivation on farmland did indeed decrease, but the farmland was not left idle; instead, other higher-yield crops were planted, so there was no waste of domestic agricultural production resources because of agricultural imports. Second, with the import of cheap agricultural products, the edible oil processing industry and the textile and garment industry were able to develop, thereby providing more employment, tax revenue, and social wealth.
Many times, farmers' interests are protected away in precisely this manner, especially protected away by unreasonable industrial policies. So how should the policy phrase "protecting farmers' interests" be properly understood, so that it does not become a fig leaf for unreasonable industrial policies?
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, one premise of "protecting farmers' interests" is farmers' vulnerability in society. From the perspective of wealth, this is indeed so; the urban-rural wealth gap cannot be denied. But before this premise, many people add another layer of interpretation - farmers are unenlightened, and therefore need the assistance and intervention of a more intelligent class; put simply, farmers are "stupid." This is also why, when a certain "protection" policy proves ineffective, society tends to interpret it as "the middlemen made all the profits, and farmers got no benefit at all," rather than reflecting on whether the policy design itself is reasonable.
Yet whether viewed from history or from the present situation, Chinese farmers are rational. Bluntly speaking, in a country that has experienced peasant uprisings, the truly foolish ones are not farmers, but those who underestimate farmers' abilities. Once this layer of prejudice is stripped away, the policy focus of "protecting farmers' interests" is not hard to imagine - it lies in giving farmers opportunities to become wealthy and creating conditions for that, rather than carrying out discriminatory tied subsidies. The most direct way is "giving money," especially raising the level of social security for rural residents and gradually closing the urban-rural gaps in medical care, education, elderly care, and other areas. At the same time, promote the two-way flow of urban and rural factors, remove the actual thresholds cities pose to farmers, and solidify the social foundation for urbanization.
In addition, existing discriminatory industrial policies should also be phased out. The author once discussed agricultural support policies with relevant experts from the OECD, and the common conclusion was that because of their short-sightedness, these policies not only fail to "protect farmers' interests," but in turn harm and damage farmers. China's agricultural support policies and "protecting farmers' interests" themselves are not problematic, but layered implementation should gradually move toward green-box measures, returning planting decisions to farmers. We must believe - Chinese farmers are smart enough.
Supply-side reform in Chinese agriculture has reached a point where it must be carried out. A reasonable logic is to build a fair, reasonable, and effective market economic order, so that the market mechanism plays a decisive role in resource allocation, while better giving play to the role of the government's hand in areas with externalities, such as agricultural infrastructure, rural education, the environment, and poverty alleviation. As the saying goes, "help people in urgent need, not those in chronic poverty." Attached to discriminatory subsidies, it is very hard for agriculture to progress, for rural areas to grow, and for farmers to become wealthy.
"Protecting farmers' interests" requires the right way of going about it.