What does the deep-water revolution in agriculture mean in the new era
In the great era of the internet and big data-driven global economic integration, China's agriculture urgently needs reform. However, time and practice have both proven that under the new era, agricultural reform and development is undoubtedly also a "deep-water revolution."
From the primitive agricultural era, traditional agriculture, modern agriculture, and contemporary agriculture, through their constant evolution and development, we can clearly recognize that agricultural development and its results never produce immediate effects, but are a protracted battle.
The agricultural revolution in the new era does not allow us to carry out agriculture step by step in the old way. It requires innovation, requires technology, and even more requires making farmers and land the foundation of all reform.
The author here analyzes several major deep-water zones in agriculture:
1. How should the "new three rural issues" be built in major grain-producing areas, and how should the pain points of the "three rural issues" be resolved?
How should new rural construction be carried out? Repair or build? How to repair? How to build? Once repaired and built, does that make it new rural construction? Can a village that cannot retain its people be called a new rural village? Is painting the walls once repair or construction? Can a village repaired in this way generate value appreciation? What is the meaning?
How is new agriculture defined? Concentrating land into farms, "moderate-scale" planting, should land transfer be marketized? Can large-scale planting unify standards? How can intensive and specialized agricultural planting be implemented through organized means?
How can new farmers reach a point of happiness and satisfaction? In rural areas where most are left-behind children and elderly women, how can new farmers return to the countryside? If being a farmer becomes an occupation, how can farmers' land be guaranteed? How can their interests be guaranteed?
The author believes: in building the "new three rural issues," the problems go from shallow to deep, from obvious to hidden. This is truly a "deep-water revolution" that requires us to analyze deeply and find a Chinese-style path for the "new three rural issues."
2. Agricultural planting carries high risks, and agricultural investment has a long return period
Agricultural planting is often greatly affected by natural factors such as weather. Droughts, floods, hail, tornadoes, and others can all cause crop reductions or even total crop failure, so agricultural planting carries high risks.
The growth cycle of crops is relatively long and does not produce immediate effects. Moreover, if crops and fruits are affected by natural disasters and other external factors, it often means that agricultural investment cannot be recovered in a short period. Therefore, investing in agriculture involves many uncontrollable factors, high risks, and long return cycles, causing the progress of market-oriented agriculture to be extremely slow.
The author believes: the staple grain industry and agriculture are a major field. Large enterprises such as Alibaba and Lenovo are also preparing, but they have not truly extended their hands and feet, and are all watching. The slow pace of agricultural development and the genuinely uncontrollable factors are indeed one of the main reasons.
3. The effects of applying new agricultural technologies in different locations are difficult to predict
First, the application and promotion of new agricultural technologies often yields twice the effort for half the result because there are no professional technical personnel to apply them. Good technology is good technology, good results are good results, but without standardized implementation, the application effects of new agricultural technologies are difficult to predict! This may not be a problem with the technology itself, but a problem in the process of applying the technology.
Second, in the promotion of new agricultural technologies in different locations, because soils differ, weather differs, water supply differs, and nutrient supply differs, how can new agricultural technologies effectively and clearly play their role?
The author believes: new agricultural technologies are difficult to promote, and methods and approaches are all problems. Without means of implementation, they can only become something suspended in the air without substance. How can scientific and technological achievements be transformed? Can the scientific research achievements of relevant agricultural departments be commercialized?
4. The establishment of an agricultural big data cloud platform
By the end of October 2015, the number of farmer cooperatives nationwide reached 1.479 million; the number of farmer households joining cooperatives reached 99.97 million, covering 41.7% of farmer households nationwide, with more than 135,000 demonstration cooperatives at all levels.
The construction of agricultural big data platforms such as farmer cooperatives is a major project, and is also the best way to realize agricultural industrialization and an ideal model for reducing intermediate links.
However, the construction of an agricultural big data cloud platform not only requires the work support of these farmer cooperatives, but also requires certain policy support from the government. Only then can the construction of an agricultural big data cloud platform proceed relatively smoothly.
At the same time, agricultural technology service platforms such as Nongyisheng and Tiantianquan are emerging one after another, and are basically still in the initial stage, still being a regional, or rather provincial, startup platform. The connection between agricultural technical experts and the platforms, and the connection between the platforms and demanding users, are both difficult points for agricultural technology service platforms. Resolving timeliness and the degree to which user needs are met are also core issues in building agricultural technology service platforms.
The author believes: in the internet era, applying internet thinking, agricultural big data cloud platforms and agricultural technology service platforms are the general trend, but the core links among them remain difficult points that require a leap forward.
5. How can the integration of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in agriculture be realized?
In 2015, the Central Rural Work Conference first proposed: "We must establish the concept of grand agriculture and grand food, and promote the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries with coordinated grain, economic crops, and feed, the integration of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fishery, and the integration of planting, breeding, and processing."
How can the integrated development of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries be advanced? The currently promoted "company + base + farmer household" model takes the company as the leader, the base as the support, and farmer households as the foundation. The company enterprise is the leader, using its own advantages in capital, technology, equipment, talent, and other aspects to establish corresponding agricultural product production bases, within which farmer households contract development and operations.
Only through the integration of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, and the integration of agriculture, industry, and commerce, can win-win results be achieved. But especially in staple grain agriculture, we can see that most farmers still basically remain at the stage of obtaining benefits from the primary industry, such as selling grain for money. Farmer households are still farmer households, and they have not shared in the benefits of the secondary and tertiary industries. In the end, it is companies and bases that profit in the secondary and tertiary industries, not farmer households. Therefore, the guarantees for farmer households are very low. They have land ownership, but they are not the greatest rightful beneficiaries of the land. Some of the money from selling grain obtained in the "primary industry" even comes from state subsidies.
How can farmers' interests be guaranteed and how can they share in the benefits of the secondary and tertiary industries? This is another deep-water zone in the agricultural reform of the new era.
The author believes: guaranteeing farmers' land and income is the key to the integration of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, and the key to the integration of agriculture, industry, and commerce. We need to innovate systems, find levers, and use organized means to find the connecting points among industries, closely linking farmers, land, and the relationship with the secondary and tertiary industries.
6. The "traps" of demonstration projects such as smart and leisure agriculture
Smart, ecological, leisure, facility, and sightseeing agriculture are relatively popular terms for agricultural projects today, because at the current stage, with the development of the main social trend, surrounding towns near cities are no longer ordinary rural areas, but are to develop into modern new agriculture with value creation and a market economy, including elements such as aesthetic design, technological innovation, and multifunctional equipment.
The more high-end one is smart agriculture. Smart agriculture is defined as applying Internet of Things technology to traditional agriculture, using sensors and software to control agricultural production through mobile platforms or computer platforms, achieving precise perception, control, and decision-making management, and realizing the intelligentization of traditional agriculture. At the same time, smart agriculture also includes agricultural e-commerce, food traceability and anti-counterfeiting, agricultural leisure tourism, agricultural information services, and other aspects.
Such smart agriculture and leisure agriculture are being built all over the country, with major consortia and groups investing jointly in demonstration projects that are even landmark buildings, leisure ecological agriculture, sky gardens, and so on.
The author believes:
Similar agricultural demonstrations remain at the surface. The gap between demonstration and promotion lies in practicality. Advancing the construction of smart ecological agriculture on such a large scale has not fundamentally solved the problem of practicality. Some agricultural industrial parks that consumed huge amounts of money and were built on a large scale in previous years have already stalled or been abandoned.
We must understand that a demonstration is a benchmark and the starting point of value, absolutely not just "a painting." Therefore, for the establishment and promotion of a demonstration project, the economic account must be calculated. Investing without returns, or investing for a long time without returns for a long time, is a naked waste of resources and capital. Whether to choose marketization or policyization requires examining value creation from multiple sides. We must absolutely not fall into such "traps" and be unable to get out.
7. The survival of related agricultural internet and e-commerce businesses
In 2014, Alibaba announced that it would invest 10 billion yuan within 3 to 5 years to establish 1,000 county-level operation centers and 100,000 village-level service stations, creating a new engine for agricultural e-commerce. The rural market has already become a new growth point for the e-commerce industry.
Nowadays, the fruit category in agricultural product e-commerce is developing relatively well. "Chu Orange" by "Tobacco King" Chu Shijian and "Guashudiluo" by Honey Peach Brother are both relatively successful agricultural product e-commerce sales and successful cases of engaging in agriculture. But more facts prove that this path of agriculture will inevitably be a "deep-water" revolution. Many people who have engaged in agriculture must have deeply experienced the hardships of walking this agricultural path; it is not as easy as imagined.
The internet era requires internet thinking. Agricultural reform also requires internet thinking, and integrated industrialization even more requires internet thinking. But many agricultural e-commerce businesses are knocked down on the beach before they even begin, because in the internet era, the road to branding and the road to direct sales are not easy to walk. Without strong capital investment, it is very easy to lose miserably.
The author believes:
What is a brand? In the internet era where pros and cons coexist, on online supply and marketing platforms where counterfeit goods are hard to distinguish, how easy is it to create a brand? If one truly wants to build a brand, the early stage is inevitably "burning money."
What is direct sales? When an enterprise plans to eliminate distributors and adopt a direct sales strategy, it cannot be achieved in a short time. First, too many buyers recognize distributors rather than brands. Second, the sales resources and channels in distributors' hands will not be willingly handed over.
Brands are hard to build, and once a brand exists, direct sales are hard to realize. These are all manifestations of the "deep-water revolution" in agriculture.
Facing the "deep-water revolution" in agriculture in the new era, we must clearly analyze:
In the internet era, we must apply internet thinking.
Innovation means advancing with the times, but we must not fall into the "trap" of innovation. Only by considering marketization, policyization, and practical problems together can we continue to move forward.
The development of agriculture in the new era is a "deep-water revolution." There are many deep-water zones, and the author has only listed one or two. Agriculture has risks, and investment requires caution, but with China's vast agricultural resources, agriculture is inevitably also a big cake. And because this "deep-water revolution" occurs in a different era, with different foundations, and with greatly improved technology and conditions, copying the models of developed countries requires deep thought.
In the agriculture of the new era, even in deep waters, we must strive to win the revolution!