What Are the Characteristics of Modern Agriculture? A Comprehensive Analysis of Its Main Features
Modern agriculture is a dynamic and historical concept. It is not something abstract but something concrete, and it is an important stage in the history of agricultural development. It refers to socialized agriculture that applies modern science and technology, the means of production provided by modern industry, and scientific management methods. Let us take a look below at what characteristics modern agriculture has!
The Development Trends of Modern Agriculture
1. Scale: Large-scale agriculture is the most basic characteristic of modern agriculture. The emergence of large-scale agriculture is related to three factors: first, it is related to the reform of the land system; second, it is related to the transfer of surplus rural labor; third, it is related to the experience and management models of agricultural enterprises in dealing with farmers. The third point is very important, and many agricultural enterprises have failed to get past this hurdle. The most obvious aspect of large-scale agriculture is the scale of the livestock industry, which has already achieved a relatively high degree of scale. The crop farming industry has also developed very rapidly over the past ten years.
2. Technicalization: The era of slash-and-burn farming is over, and Chinese agriculture is entering a technological revolution. Biological agriculture, precision agriculture, and equipment agriculture are becoming important components of modern agriculture. Taking biological agriculture as an example, Chinese agriculture has gone through the stage of chemical agriculture over the past 30 years. At present, this stage has basically come to an end, and it has entered a transition period from chemical agriculture to biological agriculture. The industry is especially optimistic about biological agriculture. In the coming ten, twenty, or even thirty years, the development prospects for biological agriculture are very good.
3. Branding: China is currently building its own brand system for agricultural products, but this process is still very difficult. The formation of a brand for agricultural products requires the guarantee of excellent varieties, requires quality assurance that is almost stringent, and requires sustained brand operation. Branded agriculture means a relatively long investment period, and it means that for enterprises, revenue is more important than profit, and product quality is more important than cost. So far, there are not many nationwide agricultural product brands with relatively high influence in our country, but many domestic agricultural enterprises are working hard to build their own brands.
The Significance of Building Modern Agriculture
1. A concrete manifestation of development: Developing modern agriculture is the concrete application and implementation of the Scientific Outlook on Development in agricultural and rural work. By building modern agriculture, we promote the transformation of the agricultural growth model, optimize the agricultural and rural economic structure, use agricultural resources intensively, improve agricultural competitiveness, and achieve sound and rapid agricultural development. We should vigorously develop modern agriculture, focus on transforming the agricultural growth model, optimize the industrial structure and layout, use natural resources and production factors intensively and economically, protect the ecological environment, and truly bring agricultural and rural development onto the track of scientific development.
2. The primary task of the new countryside: Accelerate the building of modern agriculture, promote production development, increase farmers' incomes, improve the ecological environment, and lay a solid industrial foundation for the building of the new countryside. Accelerate the transformation of traditional agriculture, promote the socialization of rural services, broaden channels for farmers' employment, increase farmers' incomes, promote the development of ecological agriculture, and promote the harmonious coexistence and coordinated development of humanity and nature. This is consistent with the goals of building a new socialist countryside.
3. A path to increasing farmers' incomes: Actively developing modern agriculture is the concrete implementation of the Scientific Outlook on Development in agricultural and rural work, the fundamental way to achieve stable grain development and sustained increases in farmers' incomes, and the only way to achieve sustainable agricultural development. Accelerate the building of modern agriculture, comprehensively improve comprehensive grain production capacity, improve comprehensive agricultural benefits, and fundamentally consolidate the foundation for increasing grain production and incomes.
4. The only way forward for agriculture: Agricultural development faces dual constraints from resources and the market. The contradiction of resource shortages is becoming increasingly prominent, and the pressure of competition in domestic and international markets is increasing. Accelerate the building of modern agriculture, promote progress and innovation in agricultural science and technology, vigorously develop circular agriculture and the rural circular economy, further improve the efficiency of resource utilization, improve the quality and benefits of agricultural development, and promote sustainable agricultural development.
What Are the Characteristics of Modern Agriculture?
1. Possessing relatively high comprehensive productivity: Modern agriculture possesses relatively high comprehensive productivity, including relatively high land output rate and labor productivity. Agriculture becomes an industry with relatively high economic benefits and market competitiveness. This is the most important indicator for measuring the level of modern agricultural development.
2. Becoming a sustainably developable industry: Agricultural development itself is sustainable, and it also has a good regional ecological environment. Production technologies and production models such as ecological agriculture, organic agriculture, and green agriculture are widely adopted to achieve the sustainable use of agricultural resources such as freshwater and land, achieve a virtuous cycle of regional ecology, and make agriculture itself a good recyclable ecosystem.
3. Becoming a highly commercialized industry: Agriculture mainly produces for the market, has a very high commodity rate, and allocates resources through market mechanisms. Commercialization is based on the market system. Modern agriculture requires the establishment of a very complete market system, including a modern circulation system for agricultural products. Without a developed market system, there can be no true modern agriculture. In countries with a relatively high level of agricultural modernization, the commodity rate of agricultural products is generally above 90%, and in some industries the commodity rate can reach 100%.
4. Modernization of the material conditions of production: Based on relatively complete production conditions, infrastructure, and modern material equipment, use various modern production input factors intensively and efficiently, including material inputs such as water, electricity, agricultural film, fertilizer, pesticides, improved seeds, and agricultural machinery, as well as agricultural labor input, so as to achieve the purpose of improving agricultural productivity.
5. Modernization of agricultural science and technology: Widely adopt advanced and applicable agricultural science and technology, biotechnology, and production models to improve the quality of agricultural products and reduce production costs, so as to adapt to the development trends of market demand for agricultural products toward higher quality, diversification, and standardization. The development process of modern agriculture is essentially the process of the widespread application of advanced science and technology in the agricultural field, and the process of using modern science and technology to transform traditional agriculture.
6. Realizing the modernization of management methods: Widely adopt advanced operating methods, management techniques, and management means to form a relatively complete, closely connected, and organically linked industrial chain from the pre-production, mid-production, and post-production stages of agricultural production, with a very high degree of organization. There are relatively stable and efficient channels for the sale and processing transformation of agricultural products, an organizational system that efficiently organizes scattered farmers, and an efficient modern agricultural management system.
7. Realizing the modernization of farmers' quality: Having agricultural management talents and labor with relatively high quality is a prerequisite for building modern agriculture and is also a prominent characteristic of modern agriculture.
8. Realizing the scaling-up of agricultural production: By realizing the scaling-up, specialization, and regionalization of agricultural production and operation, reduce public costs and external costs, and improve the benefits and competitiveness of agriculture.
9. Realizing the government's macro-control: Establish a complete agricultural support and protection system, including a legal system and a policy system.