Realizing agricultural modernization under the condition of protecting farmers

People are talking about agricultural modernization these two days. Not long ago, the author went to Sheyang County, Jiangsu Province and found that the "co-cultivation" promoted by them in recent years has better solved the problem of agricultural modernization under the condition of small farmers, and has really taken into account the solution of agricultural problems and farmers' problems.

In terms of agriculture, China has a large population and little land and few resources. how to ensure that the Chinese people have enough to eat, agriculture has a long way to go. As far as farmers are concerned, at present, China still has a rural population of nearly 700 million, more than 200 million farmers and more than 200 million agricultural workers, and most of the 200 million migrant workers who go to cities to work and do business fail to live in cities, and their parents still stay in villages for farming. when they are young, they go to work in cities, and when they are older, they may return to their hometown to work. In other words, China still has nearly 900 million people who are closely linked to agriculture and rural areas, and peasant families still need to obtain income and employment opportunities from agriculture.

In order to solve the problem of agriculture, it is necessary to arm agriculture with modern equipment and technology and realize agricultural modernization. But it should also be taken into account that China has a large agricultural population, little arable land per capita in rural areas and scattered plots. In this context, how to improve agricultural equipment and technology? How to realize agricultural modernization under the condition of protecting farmers? This is indeed the focus and difficulty of China's current policy on agriculture, rural areas and farmers.

Let's see how Sheyang does it. Sheyang is a major agricultural county, with 2.02 million mu of arable land, mainly growing rice and wheat. In order to achieve fairness, the operation scale of farmers is very small and the plots are scattered, thus forming a general farmland management pattern of "multiple households in one field" and "multiple farmland in one household". Not only is it not conducive to the operation of large-scale agricultural machinery in the fields, but also because of decentralized management and various crops of thousands of households, the varieties are not unified, the sowing time is not unified, and even the sowing methods are not unified, and it is difficult for agro-technical services to go to the fields and enter the households. Then, due to the limited income of agricultural operation, a large number of rural young and middle-aged labor force go to work in cities, and most of the farmers who stay in the village are over 55 years old. Because the labor force of the elderly farmers is not strong, their ability to absorb new agricultural technologies is poor, so the agricultural production is more and more extensive, which affects the agricultural output and reduces the agricultural income.

In view of such a situation, Sheyang County, through "joint farming and joint planting," has broken the ridges of the existing strip fields of about 30 mu of "one field and multiple households", and determined unified varieties through consultation, and unified cultivated land and sowing by cooperative organizations. Farmers are responsible for water and fertilizer management, pest control and other field management links, thus changing the previous pattern of decentralized management and serious fragmentation of land.

And because the high-horsepower machinery can work in the field, it is possible to return straw to the field. Through co-cultivation and co-planting, without excluding farmers and transferring farmers' land, it has improved the level of agricultural equipment and technology, reduced farmers' agricultural expenditure, increased farmers' income, increased agricultural output, and really released agricultural productivity.

Since the promotion of "co-cultivation" in August 2013, hundreds of thousands of mu of arable land in the county have joined "co-cultivation", the degree of agricultural mechanization has been greatly improved in a short period of time, and the advanced agricultural production technology represented by rice machine planting and wheat strip sowing has been rapidly popularized. "Co-farming" is especially popular among the elderly and women who have a weak family labor force.

In the practice of "joint farming" in Sheyang County, the most important thing is that without excluding farmers, especially the elderly and women with a weak labor force, through breaking the ridges of the fields, promoting mechanization, and organically combining agricultural machinery and agronomy, the agricultural production capacity has been rapidly improved and agricultural modernization has been realized.

At present, great changes are taking place in China's agricultural productive forces, and there are three choices: first, the rapid promotion of agricultural mechanization, second, the influx of a large number of rural young and middle-aged labor force into cities, and third, the separation of land contractors from operators.

The rapid change of productivity requires the corresponding adjustment of rural production relations. Sheyang County facilitates the operation of large-scale agricultural machinery by breaking the ridge of the field. The operation of large-scale agricultural machinery not only reduces the operating cost of agricultural machinery, but also can return straw to the field, and it can accommodate the new agronomy of transplanting rice seedlings and sowing wheat by machine, and through unified seed and unified cultivation, it becomes easy to control diseases and insect pests, water and fertilizer management of rice and wheat, and all kinds of social services.

Different from Sheyang County, Shayang County in Hubei Province is mainly a hilly area, and the area of each piece of land is small. In order to achieve fairness, the land in Shayang County is divided into more fine pieces, often 10 mu of land per household in four aspects, large and small, seven or eight pieces. In the past, there was a surplus of rural labor force, and the degree of mechanization was not high, so it didn't matter to carry people on their shoulders, and it didn't matter if the contracted land was scattered. Now, after the rural young and middle-aged labor force goes to the cities to work and do business, the elderly and women with weaker labor force are very tired, and farmers hope to concentrate their scattered and fragmented land in one, preferably one. Therefore, Shayang County uses the rural land being promoted to ensure the right to guide farmers to cultivate land by household.

According to farmers in Shayang County, if the previously scattered contracted land in different directions are gathered together according to each household, the labor input and production costs can be reduced by more than 1x3. The most important thing is that the land is concentrated in one area, which makes it convenient for machinery to work in the fields, so that the rural elderly and women who are physically weak can still plant good fields.

Whether it is "joint farming" or "continuous cultivation by household", huge agricultural productivity can be released only by slightly adjusting the land relationship. and this release of agricultural productivity does not exclude the weak elderly and women who have become the main body of agriculture, so that we can take into account both the development of agriculture and the farming and income of farmers.

The author believes that the direction of China's agricultural modernization should not be to exclude farmers, to withdraw farmers from agriculture, and to support new types of agricultural operators, but to provide services to thousands of ordinary farmers, and the policy of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" should take into account the problems of agriculture and farmers.