How can the good momentum of farmers' income growth be prevented from reversing?

In the current operation of the agricultural and rural economy, affected by difficulties in growing household business income and wage income, farmers' income growth is under considerable pressure, and every possible effort must be made to prevent a reversal of the good momentum of sustained and stable income growth among farmers.

Selling grain is difficult once again. During this year's summer grain purchase period, in Anhui, Henan and other places, some wheat-growing farmers encountered sales difficulties. The problem once again lay in quality: affected by continuous rainy weather in the earlier period, some wheat developed fusarium head blight and excessive imperfect grains. Because it failed to meet the quality standards for wheat under the minimum purchase price, policy-based grain storage and purchase could not be carried out; at the same time, because market-based purchasing entities were not highly motivated to enter the market, and farmers were reluctant to sell at low prices, wheat sales were blocked. Many growers lamented that although they had enjoyed a bumper harvest year, they not only failed to increase income but even lost money. Apart from grain quality reasons, industry insiders also warned that in the upcoming autumn grain purchase, major grain-producing areas must guard against the risk of farmers having difficulty selling grain due to tight warehouse capacity.

At present, household business income, including grain cultivation, still occupies an important position in the composition of farmers' income, and the increased risk of difficulty in selling grain will undoubtedly affect farmers' ability to convert their harvest into income. Affected by weakening prices of major agricultural products such as grain, the "ceiling" on continued income growth for farmers in major grain-producing areas appears to have already emerged. At the same time, in the face of increased overall downward pressure on the economy, fewer opportunities to work away from home, and greater difficulty in raising wage levels, wage income, which is likewise a pillar of farmers' income growth, also faces enormous difficulties in continuing to maintain high-speed growth.

Statistics released recently also confirm this. In the first half of this year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents was 6,050 yuan, a real increase of 6.7%. Although this growth rate both kept pace with economic growth and further narrowed the relative income gap between urban and rural residents, it is noteworthy that compared with the same period last year, the increase fell by 1.6 percentage points. Although it is only a decline in the growth rate, the trend-related problems contained within it deserve our vigilance. In the current operation of the agricultural and rural economy, farmers' income growth is under considerable pressure, and every possible effort must be made to prevent a reversal of the good momentum of sustained and stable income growth among farmers.

From 2,936 yuan in 2004 to first breaking through the 10,000-yuan mark in 2015, reaching 11,422 yuan, China's farmers' income has achieved rapid growth for 12 consecutive years. During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the average growth rate reached 9.6%, outpacing GDP for many consecutive years and also higher than the income growth rate of urban residents over the same period. Farmers with increasingly bulging pockets have gained a tangible sense of fulfillment.

To prevent a reversal of the good momentum of farmers' income growth and promote increases in farmers' income, institutional innovation and policy creation should be strengthened, efforts should be made to establish an institutional environment and endogenous mechanisms conducive to farmers' income growth, and the foundation for farmers' income growth should be consolidated. At the level of institutional innovation, reforms of the rural land system, agricultural operation system and rural property rights system should be further deepened in the future to open up sources of momentum for farmers' income growth; at the level of policy creation, efforts should be made in areas such as agricultural input, agricultural product prices, agricultural subsidies, rural finance and urbanisation to promote farmers' income growth through multiple channels. Of course, all of this must be carried out on the premise of respecting farmers' principal position and giving play to the decisive role of market mechanisms.

At present, there is still potential to be tapped for farmers' income growth. In recent years, affected by factors such as higher compensation levels for rural land expropriation, more farmers transferring land and renting out houses, and an increase in the number of people participating in shareholding and investment dividends, farmers' property income has continued to grow. In the long run, as the rural property rights market continues to improve, there is still great room for growth in farmers' property income. In addition, in the first half of this year, China's investment in the secondary industry grew by 4.4%, the tertiary industry by 11.7%, while investment in agriculture grew by 21.1%, substantially higher than the investment growth rates of the secondary and tertiary industries, indicating that agriculture and rural areas have become a hot spot for current investment. Investment growth brings rare opportunities for developing new industries and new business formats in rural areas, and also creates opportunities for rural entrepreneurship and expanded employment, all of which help broaden channels for farmers' income growth.

Achieving sustained and stable income growth is not only directly related to the well-being of the broad masses of farmers, but also to whether "our rural folks" can enter comprehensive moderate prosperity in step with the rest. For rural folks to achieve moderate prosperity, bulging wallets are the prerequisite, so the good momentum of sustained income growth must be stabilised.