Beautiful countryside construction is affected by four major problems

[Editor's note] The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, from the height of the overall layout of "Beautiful China" socialist construction, expounded the major historical task of building a new socialist countryside and put forward the grand goal of building a "beautiful countryside". General Secretary Xi Jinping further put forward the poetic requirement of "seeing the mountains, seeing the water, and remembering the nostalgia". This issue of the Think Tank has invited several experts from Nanjing Agricultural University to offer suggestions for Jiangsu's construction of a new socialist countryside, in the hope of providing some inspiration.

As of 2013, 43 villages in Jiangsu were listed in the national pilot list for beautiful countryside creation, but the province had 198,000 natural villages. How are these villages developing? How far are they from a beautiful countryside? With these questions in mind, we carried out a special study on the four types of problems affecting Jiangsu's beautiful countryside construction (rural environment, rural land, public service facilities and rural landscape).

First, let us look at the rural environment. Since the launch of the action plan for comprehensive village environmental improvement with full coverage in 2011, the number of villages in Jiangsu Province meeting the environmental improvement standards has reached 167,000, and the 8 cities in southern and central Jiangsu have fully completed the task of village environmental improvement, with the appearance of the improved villages markedly better. However, the pressure of various types of pollution on beautiful countryside construction still exists, mainly including agricultural non-point source pollution, rural industrial pollution, rural domestic waste and rural domestic sewage. Many farming households lack relevant training, and various pollutants are discharged directly without treatment, polluting the rural ecological environment and increasing the difficulty of rural environmental pollution control. In addition, problems such as villagers' low enthusiasm for using biogas, the relatively low rate of environmentally friendly treatment of straw, the relatively large differences in comprehensive village environmental improvement across the province, and the slow improvement of rural living conditions in backward areas have not been fundamentally solved. In some places, the phenomenon of "valuing construction over management" is prominent, with more going through the motions, and coupled with the lack of long-term management funds and weak rural environmental law enforcement, the recurrence of "dirty, messy and poor" conditions is relatively common.

Next, let us look at rural land. Jiangsu took the transformation of land use patterns as an opportunity, and through promoting projects such as the linking of urban and rural construction land increases and decreases, the construction of 10,000-hectare fertile farmland, and the consolidation of rural construction land, effectively accelerated coordinated urban-rural development and beautiful countryside construction. Investigation and analysis found that the comprehensive rural land consolidation projects in beautiful countryside areas have achieved obvious results, and agricultural production conditions and farmland quality have been improved. Although some farmers have abandoned cultivated land, on the whole the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The circulation of rural contracted land has accelerated, farmers' employment forms have diversified, agricultural service outsourcing has also shown a trend of diversification and specialization, and the degree of mechanization in agricultural production has been rapidly raised. At the same time, farmers' preferences for ways of farmland operation or production income have become increasingly diversified, and show certain differences depending on location. As for housing land, farmers in beautiful countryside areas have gradually developed multi-purpose value beyond residential use, indicating that most villagers are willing to stay in rural areas, and their recognition of the rural living environment and lifestyle has gradually strengthened. However, there are also some problems in rural land: some farmers are dissatisfied with the implementation process and resettlement plans of comprehensive rural land consolidation projects, believing that farmers' wishes have not been respected and that household participation is insufficient. As economic conditions improve, farmers' willingness to give up or withdraw from contracted land with compensation has gradually emerged, but factors such as living habits, urban environment, economic income and economic compensation have hindered the smooth realization of farmers' withdrawal from homestead land.

Then, let us look at public service facilities. In the work of the village Party branch and village committee, community environmental improvement projects, unified housing construction planning, and sanitation projects such as rural pen and toilet renovation are listed as top priorities. The penetration rates of rural sanitary toilets, the new rural cooperative medical system, social insurance, tap water, compulsory education, road hardening rate, and village-level medical and health facility provision are relatively high. Specifically, with the gradual popularization of the new rural cooperative medical system, most villagers choose to seek medical treatment at village clinics. Apart from the reason of being close to home, some villagers believe that the medical technology of village clinics is trustworthy. Among various public service facilities, the most frequently used are fitness equipment areas, village central squares and community cultural activity rooms. Some villages have also built cultural facilities such as village history halls and memorial halls for specific tasks and historical events. By comparison, rural social security and elderly care facility services lag behind and lack humanistic care. Educational facilities are relatively well provided but uneven. Overall, in areas with higher economic levels and better educational facility provision, it is more convenient for villagers' children to attend kindergarten and school. The sources of rural collective income show diversified characteristics. Agriculture-related services have driven the development of public service facilities and increased farmers' income, advancing beautiful countryside construction. With housing renewal and infrastructure construction, villages are evolving from traditional to modern and from closed to open. Various public service facilities are continuously optimized and improved, but there are still some deficiencies, such as: after improving farmers' living conditions, how can increases in economic burden and the loss of local characteristics be avoided? How can guiding opinions and operating standards suited to local realities be formulated for some new facilities in beautiful countryside areas, such as tourism centers and commercial streets?

Finally, let us look at the rural landscape. In addition to tidy village appearance and a good environment, beautiful countryside cannot omit rural culture and rural landscape. Beauty should be beautiful in "form" and also charming in "heart". Remembering "nostalgia" means making plain areas more pastoral, hilly and mountainous areas more village-like, and water network areas more water-town-like. More than half of Jiangsu's villages have traditional characteristic industries related to, or even closely related to, landscape and landform features. For example, the characteristic industry of Linta Village in Yancheng is cattail bags, closely related to its water-town characteristics, and the characteristic industry of Yapu Village in Changzhou is fruit tree planting, closely related to the local landform and water and heat conditions. The survey found that many villages have historical buildings more than 50 years old, and often more than one, such as feng shui trees, memorial archways and sculptures, indicating that there are differences in landscape and cultural characteristics among villages, which constitute important elements for beautiful countryside to remember "nostalgic memories", but the current situation is that they are not fully explored.

Jiangsu's beautiful countryside construction work has achieved considerable results, but there is still a considerable gap from the beautiful countryside in people's minds. First, classified guidance should be carried out on the basis of respecting farmers' wishes, and differentiated policies should be both rigid and flexible. Persist in waste classification and treatment and the construction of sewage treatment systems, develop ecological circular agriculture, make coordinated arrangements for agricultural production, farmers' lives and rural ecology, change rural energy use methods to reduce living energy consumption, and consolidate existing achievements through long-term mechanisms. Combine revitalizing homestead land assets with economical and intensive land use, and explore new community construction models for beautiful countryside. Improve the operational service benefits of public facilities, and raise construction funds through multiple channels by amplifying the leverage effect of fiscal funds. At the same time, avoid waste caused by oversized construction. While strengthening the protection of tangible rural heritage, emphasize continuing traditional spatial forms and protecting rural intangible cultural heritage.

(Chen Wei is a professor at the College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, and Wu Wei is an associate professor at the College of Public Administration, Nanjing Agricultural University)