Agricultural industrialization should make room for small farmers

Under the circumstances that there are a large number of people and little land, a large number of rural population, and the receptive capacity of cities remains to be observed, we need to re-recognize the wisdom and contribution of hundreds of millions of small farmers who maintain China's social stability in agricultural production, and in the process of agricultural modernization and industrialization, ensure the interests of the broad masses of small farmers and maintain the stability of rural society.

The model of small farmers can create more jobs.

In his recent book the New Peasant Class: the Empire and the struggle for Autonomy and Sustainability in the Age of Globalization, the Dutch agricultural sociologist van der Plegg deeply discusses the following characteristics and differences between small-scale peasant agriculture and corporate agriculture.

In the past, the theory of small farmers often believed that small farmers were "obstruction to development", an obstacle to industrialization "getting rid of the backward road", and a social form that should disappear or be actively removed. It was replaced by "agricultural entrepreneurs" who were well-equipped and obedient to the logic of the market. Because it is impossible for small farmers to cross the "technological upper limit" implied in their resource utilization, the backward mode of production of small farmers is equivalent to poverty. Van der Plegg pointed out that there are many misunderstandings in these theories of small farmers. They only emphasize the intervention and participation of small farmers as an established element in agriculture, but hardly touch on how small farmers participate.

In fact, the way small farmers organize agricultural development determines that their income will be maintained at an acceptable level, or even increased. The household contract responsibility system in rural China, which began in the early 1980s, is a typical agricultural model of small-scale farmers. It concerns the initiative of the subject's own strength, emphasizes the enthusiasm and contribution spirit of working with nature, and the value and satisfaction produced by relatively independent craftsmen. Labor has become a key factor, at the center of the stage, linking it to self-controlled, partially self-allocating resources, as well as to the future and the future. Labor centrality is closely related to employment, and the agricultural model of small farmers can create more jobs than other agricultural models.

Small farmers rely on the cooperative production of man and nature, full of respect for the environment and life. Nature is used to create and expand a resource pool, which is supplemented by labor, knowledge, network, market access and so on. The careful planning of the agricultural production season reflects the high efficiency of family division of labor and cooperation. Moreover, diversity has been covered in the concept of smallholder agriculture from the very beginning. Since the 1990s, the practical field of rural development in Europe has shown the versatility of agriculture, which has greatly increased the added value that smallholder agriculture can create. But it should be pointed out that while European agriculture is changing from specialization to versatility, China's agriculture is changing from versatility with a long history to specialization.

There are many phenomena of exclusion and extortion in corporate agriculture.

When capital has no more profit space in the city, what is really valued is the broad profit space of rural areas and agriculture, often ignoring hundreds of millions of rural small farmers.

In these agricultural companies, most of the capital comes from the outside of the countryside for the purpose of making profits. Its activities in agriculture are often separated from the existing ecological capital, focusing on gradually reducing the role of nature, because nature makes the labor process can not be standardized, thus becoming an obstacle to the accelerated expansion of production scale. With the promotion of high technology, those preserved parts are also constantly undergoing the "reconstruction" of the omni-directional "artificial" process, which has gone beyond the traditional imagination.

The production goal of corporate agriculture focuses on the creation of profit (surplus value), which only depends on the available resources to produce added value. The market has become an organizational principle here, agricultural production has to follow the "logic of the market", and entrepreneurship has become the core mechanism to adjust the social and natural elements inside and outside agricultural enterprises. Under the guidance of this goal of blindly pursuing profits, when the market price level falls so badly that profits fall to naught, capital will choose to exit and transfer to other industries, regardless of a country's food security.

The company's agriculture organizes and arranges labor and production processes according to market relations and its prospects, and external indicators become the main indication criteria, such as determining rationing according to milk prices and the cost of different feed materials, rather than based on the growth process and daily performance of a cow. The indifference of corporate agriculture to biological life and the nature of treating agricultural objects as discarded products make raised animals more vulnerable, in sharp contrast to the "meticulous care" of smallholder agriculture.

In corporate agriculture, the level of profit and income can be achieved by reducing labor input, which can be improved with the outflow of labor. They will not strive to create more jobs, and small farmers are destined to be superfluous. There are more phenomena of exclusion and seizure in corporate agriculture, such as land, water resources, human resources, policy and financial support, and so on.

Be able to keep the green mountains and rivers and remember nostalgia

Agriculture cannot be reduced to food supply. Agriculture represents an important relationship between society and nature, and it is always integrated with nature, society and the emotions, interests and prospects of those who are personally involved in farmers. As Bowman pointed out, the continuity of life is the essence of agriculture. The current trend of agricultural development is often de-socialized and dehumanized, which reduces social relations to a pure transaction of material and money. In recent years, the tide of large-scale specialization and single planting has been carried out all over the country on the grounds of adjusting the industrial structure. Many of these measures are aimed at increasing local taxes or companies for profit, and often do not take into account the basic principle that the livelihood of small farmers' families comes first. Farmers who are forced to grow other cash crops now have to buy commodity grain, making their lives riskier and particularly vulnerable to famine.

At a time when the central government pays more attention to the "new countryside of people", we need to maintain a clear understanding of the "illusion of development" or "new countryside of things" constructed by capital going to the countryside and corporate agriculture. "Human well-being" should become the ultimate concern for rural development. Such a development model should change the squeeze and grab of rural and peasant survival resources, restore and rebuild rural economic, social and cultural ties and vitality. In the face of the heavy reality of materialization and commercialization in rural areas, can we leave more family space for agriculture and rural life with farmers as the main body?