Developing the comprehensive agricultural service industry remains a long and demanding task

Through the exploratory practices of Guangxi Tianyuan, a clear conclusion can be drawn: the professionalization and socialization of agricultural services can greatly improve production efficiency while substantially reducing the cost of using agricultural machinery and the circulation expenses of consumable agricultural inputs. Building a modern agricultural service industry system can create an external environment for the efficient management of large-scale land, thereby greatly reducing costs and enhancing the international competitiveness of China's agricultural products.

In China, wheat, despite being managed in a scattered manner across the land, achieved a substantial reduction in the labor cost of harvesting and an improvement in harvesting efficiency through the cross-regional operations of professional "wheat harvesters," thereby initiating and essentially achieving mechanization in wheat harvesting. Conversely, without modern agricultural services, even if land is transferred, large-scale operators will find it difficult to survive and develop. Therefore, developing a modern socialized agricultural service industry should be treated as a priority in advancing the supply-side structural reform of agriculture.

High-efficiency agricultural machinery is the technical and equipment support for the survival and development of the modern agricultural service industry. At present, pest and disease control in the production of rice, wheat, corn, fruit trees, sugarcane, and vegetables, as well as rice seedling raising and transplanting, and the harvesting of fruit trees, sugarcane, and vegetables, are still basically carried out by manpower using simple tools. Therefore, the development and promotion of high-efficiency agricultural machinery, equipment, and technologies suitable for modern socialized agricultural service organizations should be accelerated, and the government should focus its agricultural support funds on supporting the development and application of high-efficiency agricultural machinery and supporting products and technologies.

Another urgent issue is that the focus of agricultural machinery subsidies should shift from encouraging individual households or individual farmer planting cooperatives to purchase agricultural machinery to focusing on supporting specialized agricultural service organizations. This is because when growers purchase agricultural machinery on their own, the utilization rate of equipment and personnel is low, resulting in high equipment operating costs. In contrast, when agricultural machinery subsidies are given to specialized agricultural service organizations, especially companies that can organize cross-regional services within the country, equipment utilization is high, use and maintenance are professional, personnel work for longer seasons, and operating costs are low, which can reduce the fees charged for agricultural services and thereby lower the cost of agricultural production. At the same time, the promotion and popularization of agricultural machinery depends on machinery operators with professional operating and maintenance skills, so training machinery operators with the skills to operate and maintain multiple types of agricultural machinery should be made another focus of attention.

There is another issue that cannot be ignored: modern agricultural services such as pest and disease control and seedling raising and transplanting are new things, and there is a lack of operation and acceptance standards, which makes it very easy for disputes and conflicts to arise between growers and service organizations. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish a set of agricultural operation and acceptance standards and an operation dispute coordination body to create an environment of fair trade for the modern agricultural service industry.

The field of agricultural services is fragmented and divided, and the degree of socialization and full-process service is low. Apart from harvesting services, which have basically achieved cross-regional operation, other agricultural services are still basically at a local and regional stage. Moreover, the socialization, full-process service, and cross-regional operation of agricultural operations such as rice seedling raising and transplanting, fertilization, plant protection and pest control, and drying have not yet set sail. Advancing professional agricultural services still has a long way to go.