Farmers pick chrysanthemums in Zhoujiacun Village of Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province
Sun Xiaowei, a young villager who owns 90 mu (6 hectares) of farmland in Wangwudao, a village in Liaoning Province in northeast China, saw his income soaring last year. "I transferred the management right of my land to a rural cooperative. In return, it pays me 750 yuan ($120) per mu every year," said Sun, who now also serves as a technician in the cooperative, reveling in the fact that his annual income almost doubled in 2014.
Land right transfer and scale management were among the key issues discussed at the 2014 Central Rural Work Conference concluding on December 23, which mapped out the plan for 2015. Centered on the transformation and modernization of agricultural development, the conference also tapped into preservation of local culture and ecological environment and infrastructure construction in rural areas.
"Compared with the rapidly advancing urbanization, industrialization and informatization, China's agricultural modernization is relatively stagnant," said Li Guoxiang, a researcher with the Institute of Rural Development under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Li's argument is echoed by Zheng Fengtian, a professor from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development at the Renmin University of China, who believes agricultural modernization is a critical variable that significantly affects the progress of industrialization and urbanization. "If agricultural modernization goes on smoothly, more labor force will be freed from farm work to push forward urbanization," said Zheng.
Mounting challenges
Although China's grain output and rural residents' income have grown for 11 consecutive years, agriculture still faces mounting risks and structural problems.
According to statistics provided by Li Wei, President of Development Research Center of the State Council, from 2004 to 2012, land cost, labor cost and service charge of growing rice, wheat and corn increased respectively by 15.7 percent, 10.4 percent and 8.7 percent, higher than the price growth of the three staple grains.
"While agricultural production costs keep climbing domestically, the prices of bulk agricultural commodities are sliding down in the international market. As a result, agricultural import is on the increase," said Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu.
China faces a lack of agricultural resources, with its per-capita cultivated land and water equivalent to only one-third and one-fourth of the world average respectively. Its agricultural production heavily depends on pesticides and chemical fertilizers, which has resulted in declining land capacity and food security risks. A large part of China's agricultural production capacity was achieved at the expense of ecological environment, said Li Wei.
The imbalance in agricultural production grows more and more evident. Because of irrational regional layout and different resource advantages, north-to-south grain transportation is concurrent with the south-to-north water diversion. While stocks of some types of agricultural products pile up, others have to be imported from the overseas market. In addition, while the consumption of chemical fertilizers keeps increasing and land capacity keeps declining, animal waste has not yet been efficiently applied in farming.
"China's agricultural production is now strained by rising costs and decreasing financial subsidies. It's squeezed by the deteriorating environment and resource scarcity. If these problems fail to be solved in days to come, they will undermine sustainable agricultural development," said Li.
How can China surmount these obstacles? Zhu Lizhi, a researcher with the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes the answer lies in agricultural modernization. "By speeding up the transformation of the agricultural development model, China's agricultural industry will shake off heavy dependence on resource consumption and the sacrifice of ecological environment, and shift its focus to quality and efficiency," Zhu said.
Scale management
In November 2014, the State Council released the Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfers of Management Rights of Rural Land and Promoting Moderate Scale Management, proposing to separate the ownership, contracting and management of rural land.
"Now, a rural household owns no more than half a hectare on average, and such a pattern of small-scale management has severely dragged down efficiency," said Han. The minister of agriculture suggested that a diversity of moderate scale management be applied to boost orderly transfers of management rights of rural land, especially to people skilled at farming. Efforts should also be made to foster new agricultural entities such as large-scale grain growers, family farms and cooperatives.
Bian Quanshui, an agricultural analyst with China International Capital Corp., also agrees that moderate scale management is inevitable for agricultural modernization.
"Compared with developed countries, China lags far behind in terms of agricultural productivity and mechanization, partly because land management is carried out in a loose and dispersed way," said Bian, holding that moderate scale management will give full play to economies of scale, elevate labor productivity and liberalize more labor for the manufacturing and service industries.
A consensus was reached at the conference to introduce modern industrial organization models such as industry chain and value chain into the agricultural sector to facilitate the integration of the agricultural, manufacturing and service industries. In other words, it means expanding the agricultural industry from simple grain production to include the processing and circulation of agricultural products and the leisure industry, prolonging the industry chain to boost added value and farmers' income.
Rural people valued
In the past, the endeavor of building a new countryside paid far more attention to infrastructure and living conditions than local culture and ecological progress. As the exodus of rural labor force leaves behind more and more "hollow villages" and women, seniors and children living on their own, the concept of "people-oriented new countryside" was put forward. It indicated that the Chinese Government has set higher requirements for the construction of new rural areas.
Cheng Guoqiang, a research fellow with the Development Research Center of the State Council, argues that the "people-oriented new countryside" should be realized in three ways. First, a service system should be established to take care of seniors, women and children who have been left behind. Public services such as education and medical care should be improved. Second, local folk culture needs to be preserved, preventing rural areas from becoming deserted villages or villages of left-behind groups. Third, the protection and improvement of ecological environment need to be intensified in rural areas.
In the past, agricultural modernization focused more on simple mechanization, said Liu Xiaochuan, a professor from the School of Public Economics and Administration of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. "The modernization of rural people's living conditions now receives equal attention," said Liu. Though rural income and regional economy have experienced rapid growth in some areas, people don't see their living conditions improved because the development of basic public infrastructure still lags behind.
Liu said it's not a simple process of urbanization or just increasing farmers' income; rather, it's letting urban areas support rural areas to quicken agricultural modernization. "More importantly, rural public services including medical care, education, physical activities and healthcare can make improvements in the process," he said.
Agricultural modernization also deals with training farmers in technology and the efficient utilization of agricultural capital, said Zhang Zhenghe, a professor from the School of Economics and Management at the China Agricultural University. Since people engaged in the agricultural industry are universally at a lower level of technology, advanced agricultural development modes must first be set up through technological demonstration areas.
"When agriculture becomes a high-value industry, the quality of operators has to be improved to conduct capital operation and carry out technological innovation. In this way, they will become new agricultural operating entities," Zhang added.
Key Tasks of Agricultural Work in 2015
1. Increasing investment in rural infrastructure and public services;
2. Tapping the consumption potentials of rural residents;
3. Strengthening the agricultural industry to foster new economic growth points.
Problems Threatening Agricultural Stability
1. Domestic agricultural products are priced higher than imports;
2. The agricultural ecological environment has been damaged. Arable land and fresh water are in scarcity.
Goals for Agricultural Modernization
With ensuring grain security remaining top priority,
1. Promoting agricultural structural reforms;
2. Exploring diversified models of appropriate scale management;
3. Developing energy-saving and environment-friendly agriculture;
4. Intensifying policy and financial supports;
5. Making good use of both domestic and overseas markets.
Highlights of New Urbanization
1. Promoting modern production factors to flow from urban areas to rural areas;
2. Speeding up the improvement of rural living conditions and the quality of farmers;
3. Propelling the integration of regional development and targeted poverty reduction.
(Compiled by Beijing Review)
