Mass entrepreneurship and innovation build a broad stage for hundreds of millions of farmers

It is not only the well-educated who can innovate, nor only wealthy places that can innovate. The countryside is vast, agriculture has unlimited potential, and it is a new space for mass entrepreneurship and innovation. To advance mass entrepreneurship and innovation in rural areas, we should encourage farmers' pioneering spirit and principal role, and carry it out in light of rural realities.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are neither the patent of small and micro enterprises nor a bonus exclusive to cities. Advancing mass entrepreneurship and innovation must take place not only in cities but even more so in rural areas. The weak links in China's economic and social development lie in agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and the vitality of entrepreneurship and innovation in agriculture and rural areas has great potential to be tapped. In my view, to advance mass entrepreneurship and innovation in rural areas, we should encourage farmers' pioneering spirit and principal role, and carry it out in light of rural realities.

The countryside is vast, agriculture has unlimited potential, and it is a new space for mass entrepreneurship and innovation. College students returning to their hometowns and migrant workers are full of enthusiasm and drive, and the upsurge of mass entrepreneurship has already surged to the fields. Under the wave of entrepreneurship and innovation, as relevant departments simplify approval procedures to "lower the threshold", reduce taxes and fees to "lower the burden", and increase fiscal and tax support, group after group of agricultural "makers" are emerging as a new force.

But at the same time, agricultural entrepreneurship and innovation have also run into bottlenecks. The "outlet" is crowded with people, and many "cannot take off". The planting and breeding industry is high-risk and slow to yield results; loans for agricultural projects are difficult, and funding needs are hard to meet; practitioners lack capacity, have low-level technology and lack resources... Compared with other fields, rural entrepreneurial projects are more prone to homogenization, and the road ahead for agricultural "makers" seems even more rugged.

At present, the difficulty of some rural entrepreneurial projects lies in entrepreneurs not understanding agriculture and rural areas. Generally speaking, agricultural entrepreneurial projects have relatively poor short-term profitability, large initial investment and very high risk, and are easily affected by natural disasters. Many conditions in counties and villages are inferior to large and medium-sized cities, entrepreneurial mechanisms cannot keep up, infrastructure needs improvement, and the public service system has yet to be perfected. But as long as we dig deep into the multiple functions of agriculture, precisely connect with market demand, achieve innovation in business models, and provide users with differentiated services, the success rate can be raised.

Take the breeding industry as an example. Traditional pig farming has relatively low profits, and prices show cyclical fluctuations, so entrepreneurial risk is relatively high. Yet some entrepreneurs take a different path and choose to raise local specialty breeds, which have great market potential. Following the model of the fan economy and community economy, customers pay a deposit first, and the transaction is completed after the pigs are grown, using the funds received for supply chain finance. This is innovation in the business model. It can be seen that agricultural makers should establish new business concepts, introduce new industrial forms, promote new marketing models, and bring modern industrial development concepts and organizational methods such as industrial chains, supply chains and value chains into agriculture and rural areas.

For "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" in rural areas and agriculture, the funding problem is the biggest "roadblock", and the shortage of talent is a "stumbling block" hindering development. At present, many cities are building "mass entrepreneurship and innovation" platforms to gather innovative talent and capital, but most of these platforms are far from rural areas. Therefore, to channel more entrepreneurial resources from cities to rural areas, the government's role should be brought into play, more specialized crowd-innovation platforms should be encouraged to move closer to rural areas, the situation in which rural entrepreneurs fight alone should be changed, and a broader space for work, social interaction and resource sharing should be provided for rural entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship and innovation have their own internal laws. From successful cases in various places, it is found that the more a place respects farmers' principal status, the better rural entrepreneurship and innovation are done. Therefore, entrepreneurship and innovation should not be mystified. It is not only the well-educated who can innovate, nor only wealthy places that can innovate. Rural entrepreneurship and innovation are all-dimensional, multi-level and multi-field, including not only technology and craft but also management and operations; in terms of technology, there are both advanced and sophisticated technologies and ordinary general crafts; and they include both product industries and brand creativity, among others.

At present, world agriculture has entered a new period in which technological innovation and entrepreneurship are the most active, and China's agricultural development is also transitioning from mainly relying on factor-driven growth to relying on innovation-driven growth. In the future, market mechanisms should be used to guide the flow of innovative factors such as technology, talent and capital to agriculture and rural areas, promote the coordinated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and, with informatization of rural areas and agriculture as a breakthrough, advance the professionalization of farmers and the modernization of agriculture.