How Baoshan City, Yunnan, enables one piece of land to yield three incomes
Baoshan has a low-latitude mountainous subtropical humid monsoon climate, with abundant rainfall, obvious vertical climate zones, and rich and unique biological species. Its complex natural endowments constitute a diversity of resources, giving it uniquely favorable conditions for developing modern highland-characteristic agriculture. In 2014, Baoshan City was listed as one of the 24 major grain-producing cities nationwide, with the scale of characteristic industry bases such as walnuts, tea, and coffee reaching more than 8.3 million mu, and 9,029 new agricultural operating entities. But there are also some problems, such as the prominent issues of small, scattered, and weak agricultural industries, which have not formed economies of scale or a complete agricultural development chain.
To win the battle against poverty and build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the focus is in rural areas, the key is farmers, and the difficulty is increasing income. How to proceed from reality, both leveraging internal advantages and drawing on external forces, and balancing immediate and long-term considerations to promote the large-scale development of agricultural industries and shore up the weak links in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, is a question we have been thinking about all along.
In March this year, our investigation at the Longling base of Yunnan Hengguan Taida Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. gave us much inspiration. The company entered Longling in October 2014 and planned to invest 600 million yuan by the end of 2018 in Mengnuo Town, Longling County, to build a 30,000-mu Chu Orange base. The base's development model adopts "one lease, two contracts, three dividends." "One lease" means establishing a mechanism for land rent to increase according to the number of transfer years to realize land transfer, dividing the 30-year land lease term into 3 10-year periods, with rent paid at 300 yuan, 400 yuan, and 500 yuan per mu per year for each 10-year period respectively, with payment once every 5 years, paid in full in the first month of the first year. "Two contracts" means establishing a long-term mechanism of strict management, contracting the base's fruit trees to farmers for management and care. The company divides the base into units of 2,000 to 2,500 trees (25 to 35 mu), with each unit equipped with 2 industrial workers, giving priority to hiring labor from land-leasing households. In the first 3 years before fruiting, wages are paid at 15 to 16 yuan per tree per year; after fruiting, commissions are paid at 0.8 to 1 yuan per kg according to market conditions and output. "Three dividends" means establishing a benefit-sharing mechanism. Starting from the fruiting period, land-leasing households participate in the base's benefit sharing at 15% of industrial workers' annual planting management income (600 yuan to 750 yuan per mu per year during the high-yield period), while the town and village groups participate in sharing at 1.5% (60 yuan to 75 yuan per mu per year during the high-yield period) for project coordination and village-level public affairs expenditures.
According to statistics, by the end of March 2016, the company had transferred 7,864 mu of land and paid 11.769 million yuan in rent; completed 39 million yuan in fixed asset investment, planted 3,600 mu of Yunguan oranges, built 1 organic fertilizer plant with an annual output of 10,000 tons, built 30 km of main roads in the base, built 42 km of water pipe networks, and installed 50 km of high-efficiency water-saving pipe networks.
While the company developed, it also had a positive impact on the production and life of surrounding villages. After the company came to Mengnuo Town to build the base, it adhered to ecological development and used only organic fertilizer synthesized from cow dung, sheep dung, chicken manure, crop straw, and understory organic matter. For this reason, it purchased large quantities of livestock manure and organic matter from farmers. The previously repeatedly remediated but ineffective problems of randomly discarding livestock manure and various crop straws were significantly improved, and the environment around the villages became clean and tidy.
The development practices of Hengguan Taida and Zhongye Agriculture in Baoshan provided reference for Baoshan City to develop large-scale agriculture through land transfer, and explored a new path for farmers to obtain three incomes from one piece of land - lease, work, and benefits - driving farmers, especially those in poverty-stricken areas, to increase income.
Taking Hengguan Taida in Longling County as an example, the land rent is 300 yuan per mu, farmers earn 60 to 100 yuan per day working for the company, and after production begins the benefit sharing is between 40,000 and 60,000 yuan. From March 2015 to March 2016, in one year the company used 13,000 person-times of temporary labor and paid 840,000 yuan in wages. For the poor household Dong Jiahong, the company not only leased their 30 mu of land, but also hired the couple to manage the orchard, with rent plus work income exceeding 35,000 yuan a year. It is understood that there were 71 households and 142 people like Dong Jiahong who were hired as industrial workers after training. At the same time, the company also recruited 30 technical management personnel from the village and absorbed 8 returning college students from the village, with an obvious effect in transferring rural labor locally and nearby. The same is true of Zhongye Agriculture Company in Shidian County: land rent is 400 to 600 yuan per mu, farmers earn 60 to 100 yuan per day working for the company, and benefit sharing is between 40,000 and 60,000 yuan.
On the basis of carefully summarizing the development experience of Hengguan Taida and Zhongye Agriculture and conducting extensive and in-depth investigation, reflection, and demonstration, we proposed innovating the land transfer mechanism and building 10 large-scale agriculture demonstration zones with more than 10,000 mu of land transferred each across the city, promoting the industrialized, intensive, branded, and ecological development of agriculture, and realizing farmers' "one piece of land, three incomes."
Highlight characteristics in base construction, focusing on developing characteristic industries such as high-quality specialty fruits, vegetables, tea, coffee, Chinese medicinal materials, and flowers. The land transfer area of each industrial base shall be no less than 10,000 mu, promoting "one village, one product" and "one township (county), one industry," and realizing rapid development led by large-scale agriculture.
Highlight integration in industrial development, taking market demand as the guide, ensuring raw material supply from industrial bases, giving play to the leading role of large-scale flagship enterprises, promoting deep processing of characteristic agricultural products, extending the industrial chain, and increasing the added value of products; integrating the construction of the "ten ten-thousand-mu" demonstration zones into all-for-one tourism development, carefully building a group of characteristic, facility-based, and sightseeing ecological agricultural parks, and realizing the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries.
Highlight branding in enterprise production, taking brand cultivation as the main direction, accelerating the construction of a standardization system for agricultural product processing, promoting standardized production of agricultural product processing, advancing "three products and one label" certification, enhancing enterprises' market competitiveness with brand influence, and realizing that one enterprise drives one industry, enriches the people in one area, and strengthens the economy of one region.
Highlight innovation in support methods, establishing a 200 million yuan agricultural industry development fund, adopting the "51 + 49" cooperation model, and making it clear that counties (cities, districts) are the main bodies responsible for construction, responsible for doing a good job in overall planning, land transfer, and other services. At the same time, establish 3 mechanisms for increasing farmers' income - land transfer rent, enterprises giving back to land-leasing farmers, and working for the company - as well as a mechanism for rewarding village groups involved in the base with commissions, encouraging farmers to entrust their land as shares to enterprises and work at the bases, transforming them from farmers into industrial workers, accelerating the pace of poverty alleviation for poor households, and strengthening village collective economies through commission rewards. At present, each county (city, district) has planned 18 large-scale agricultural demonstration bases of 10,000 mu, with planned land transfer of 308,500 mu, 12 of which meet the conditions for implementation, and 85,600 mu has already been transferred.