How to promote the spirit of craftsmanship in agriculture
Not long ago, Ren Zhengfei said something very thought-provoking. He said that "high quality at a low price" and "letting consumers enjoy low prices" are unreliable. What he meant is that product quality must be improved, which is the core of supply-side reform, and what is needed is the pursuit of perfection, the "spirit of craftsmanship."
This is true in the industrial sector, but what about agriculture?
It should be said that at present, the need to improve quality in agriculture is even more urgent than in industry. In recent years, not only have problems such as food safety, soil pollution, and unsalable agricultural products been widely criticized, but the domestic consumption structure has also been quietly transforming. Not to mention that China now has a middle class numbering in the hundreds of millions, who pay even more attention to the safety and quality of agricultural products. Even ordinary consumers, when faced with the dazzling array of vegetables, melons, and fruits on the market, now look at them with a more critical eye. And in the face of the low-price impact of international agricultural products, agriculture especially needs the "spirit of craftsmanship" to rebuild confidence.
The "spirit of craftsmanship" is first of all a kind of inheritance. Extended to agriculture, it is deep thinking about "the relationship between people and the land," and universal respect for the basic common sense of agricultural production. For example, it means revering nature and protecting the environment. The "spirit of craftsmanship" is also respect for traditional agricultural wisdom. Our vast rural areas have never lacked sound concepts of agricultural production. The "mulberry dike fish pond" of the Pearl River Delta is a very good example, fully demonstrating the interrelated cycle of production of the "mulberry dike fish pond," and showing the wisdom of farmers in adapting to local conditions and treating nature well.
Inheritance does not mean clinging to the old. The times are developing, demand is changing, and the "spirit of craftsmanship" clearly also needs to keep pace with the times. In agriculture, drip irrigation facilities adopted because of water scarcity, new varieties introduced because of technological development, and so on all belong to this category. The only thing that does not change is that dedication to and pursuit of farming.
Of course, the "spirit of craftsmanship" is not just a romantic slogan, and its promotion and cultivation clearly require conditions. So in today's society, what can be used to inspire the "spirit of craftsmanship" in agriculture?
Institutional guarantees come first. In an environment where the entire society is tainted by utilitarianism, without sound institutional development, the "spirit of craftsmanship" clearly can only remain at the level of individual exceptional skill and personal cultivation, and is often unsustainable. This is also an important reason why Japan's "Living National Treasure" system is repeatedly mentioned. Among these, the protection of intellectual property rights deserves the greatest attention.
The author once interviewed a breeder who made outstanding contributions to the development of the corn seed industry, still holding fast in the cornfields at over 70 years of age. When the corn seed market was mentioned, this elderly man was filled with anguish. He said that breeding has a long cycle and great risks, and cultivating a new variety may take a breeder a lifetime of effort; many people, even after exhausting a lifetime of effort, still achieve no major results. And after the seed is successfully bred, some people can just put it in a bag and sell it on the market, with extremely low costs for breaking the law.
Of course, in addition to institutional guarantees, if the "spirit of craftsmanship" is to be promoted in agriculture, the most fundamental thing is still to achieve effective linkage between products and the market.
The author once visited the Hulunbuir Grassland, where a farm there attracted great attention, with large expanses of mustard flowers growing on the flat black soil. The people on the farm tended this land with great care, and in the harvest season, the canola oil pressed out was clear and fragrant. Yet these gifts from nature did not open up sales channels in the broader market. A thousand li away, in a village at the foot of Changbai Mountain called Dahuangdi, farmers formed a cooperative to grow organic rice, and the land had to be cultivated for more than 3 years before sowing. People used broken rice to brew a kind of baijiu, which also tasted very good, yet not many such products were seen for sale on the market. "Good wine also fears a deep alley"; many good agricultural and sideline products are often confined to one place because of insufficient brand building and marketing.
The most fundamental purpose of promoting the "spirit of craftsmanship" is to guide farmers to produce good products, meet the structural demand of social consumption, enable producers to live better lives through this, and thereby enhance the quality and competitiveness of agriculture as a whole. However, the "spirit of craftsmanship" that society currently calls for is still more directed at individuals, that is, the "craftsman" or "craftsman farmer" meticulously refining and constantly perfecting his own products. But looking at the world, the competitiveness of agriculture, and even the realization of the value of agricultural producers, cannot be achieved by any single breeder or any single farmer working alone.
The era in traditional villages when an old master took on a few apprentices, honed their skills, and could make a living through word of mouth has ended. When farmers face a broader market, what they need to rely on more is a model of organization.
The same principle applies to cultivating regional agricultural brands. From nurturing the land, to planting, to marketing, and even to producing a tiny advertisement for an agricultural product, what is needed is the systematic operation of an entire team. Only by allowing the "spirit of craftsmanship" to permeate every link of the entire organizational chain, with division of labor and collaboration, can its due market value be demonstrated.
Of course, promoting the "spirit of craftsmanship" in agriculture also requires the care of the whole society. Farmers, with the power of "craftsmanship," provide consumers with good agricultural products, and correspondingly the whole society should give sufficient respect to farmers' labor. This respect is first reflected in cherishing agricultural products. But just look at the countless amounts of food wasted on our dining tables every year, and we know that such an atmosphere has not yet taken shape.