Review of small-scale Peasant Agriculture in China

"one ass, two fists."

On May 11, 1964, while listening to the report of the leading group of the Planning Commission on the third five-year Plan, Mao Zedong put forward the idea of two fists and one ass for the national economy. The basic industry is a fist, the national defense industry is a fist, and agriculture is the ass. If you want your fists to be strong, you must sit on your buttocks. If you think about it carefully, at that time, the elderly expounded the strategic relationship between agriculture and industry, which was clear and accurate. If industry is to be strong, agriculture must be stable, and it is also mentioned in "on the Ten relationships" that industry even had to serve agriculture at that time, and we had to admire the profound strategic vision of the elderly at that time. Now half a century has passed, our agriculture today has come to a stall, or is undergoing the transformation and evolution of the internal structure. Sun Tzu said, "soldiers must observe the great affairs of the country, the place of death and life, and the way of survival." We say, "We must observe the changes in the agricultural situation, the great affairs of the country, and the relations of the people."

"one ass, two fists" of agriculture

At present, China's agriculture itself is also emerging the phenomenon of "one ass, two fists", the general trend of agriculture is quietly undergoing some changes, slow but enough to cause waves. "one ass" is the traditional agricultural production system that we still occupy a large part; "two fists", one is the modern agricultural production and marketing system combined with biology and information; the other is the modern socialized agricultural service system combined with the new business main body. Traditional and modern, the rise and transformation of these two agricultural forces is not only the new context for us to understand the current agricultural situation in China, but also the basis for us to judge the direction of agricultural development. Now that the general trend has happened, we should objectively analyze and analyze these two agricultural forces, which seem to represent two directions, neither resting on their laurels nor getting carried away.

"one ass"-- the Power of small Farmers' Agriculture

Traditional small-scale peasant agriculture-super adaptive ability and vitality.

Let's start with the word "tradition". The tradition of small-scale peasant economy is because China's small-scale peasant economy is not born, but has gradually evolved from "big farmers" to "small farmers" since the Sui and Tang dynasties. According to historical records, Wei Xiaowen Emperor Taihe issued an equalization order in the ninth year (AD 498). Men received 40 mu of open fields over 15 years, 20 mu for women, and 20 mu of mulberry fields for men. The so-called "open field" is farmland, that is, the average operating scale of each household is about 60-100 mu. In the seventh year of Wu de (AD 624), Tang issued a land equalization order, stipulating that Ding Nan and Zhong Nan will each receive 100 mu of land, of which 20 mu is Yongye farmland and 80 mu is land division, of which Yongye farmland can be inherited. That is, adults and eldest sons can cultivate a total of about 200 mu of land. According to the existing historical data in China, the ratio of human to land has dropped to about 5.5 since the Southern Song Dynasty, and the vast majority of farmers' cultivated area is less than 25 mu. To the Qing Dynasty, it even dropped to 2.83. According to a survey of six provinces and cities conducted by Chen Hansheng and Xue Wuqiao in 1933, it was found that the average household of poor farmers and farm labourers was 5.7 mu, and that of middle farmers was 17.5 mu. At present, the average arable land per household in China is only 7.5 mu, which is equivalent to 1x40 in the European Union, 400 in the United States, and less than that in Japan and South Korea. It can be said that China's small-scale peasant agriculture has evolved for more than 1400 years since the Sui and Tang dynasties, and today's so-called small-scale peasant agriculture has been formed. Chinese farmers are called small-scale farmers. It seems that the word "small-scale peasant" is very historical, and it is not too much to say "tradition". two。 Let's talk about "seeing the big in the small" among the small farmers.

In modern society, efficiency is the first priority. Many people, from scholars to officials, say that "small farmers" are not competitive and are the object of elimination. The agricultural products produced are even more uncompetitive, and it is difficult to guarantee safety, not to mention high prices. For the time being, I will not deny the above point of view. From another point of view, I would like to talk about the "unconventional" competitiveness of "small farmers"-the super adaptability created by distributed characteristics. Small farmers in China conform to the typical characteristics of distributed systems. The biggest advantages of distribution are adaptability and elastic redundancy. This can be closely coordinated with the diverse agricultural environment with a large population and little land in our country. As we all know, the competition in the biological world is very interesting, and each creature has its own unique survival strategy, some waiting, some taking the initiative, some good at camouflage, some fierce weapons. This is the so-called "niche competition strategy" in ecology, that is, it seems that everyone is fighting for the same kind of resources, but in fact, because various organisms have adopted different strategies, their competition is not in the same niche, that is, the competition is not at the same level, which essentially avoids the direct competition between homogeneity, and the organisms skillfully transform the direct competition for matter into indirect competition. And saved themselves. In this way, uniqueness is very important in an open system. In fact, the agriculture of various countries is better than that, if a country's agriculture does not have its own unique core competitiveness, it will not be able to be protected from the impact of global agricultural trade. Now we need to focus on how to build the uniqueness of China's agricultural competitiveness in the open system. This competitiveness is either the protective advantage of the trade system, such as Japan's ultra-high trade tariff system for agricultural products, or cutting-edge technological advantages, such as genetically modified breeding of agricultural products and agricultural mechanization in the United States, or rich advantages in natural resources. such as the vast land resources of Brazil, Russia and Australia. Many of their agricultural resources are beyond our reach, and some of them are irreplaceable. What about us. Perhaps it is a bit unexpected that the unique competitiveness of our agriculture is precisely the characteristics of the small-scale peasant economy with super adaptability. Let's see what unique tools of this "small-scale peasant" economy can nourish the prosperous dynasty of this nation for more than 1500 years, and what kind of agricultural miracle we have created today in the new century.

One of the sharp tools: the perfect match of small farmers and resource endowments-intensive cultivation. More than a hundred years ago, in 1909, an American named F.H.King traveled across the ocean to China, Japan and Korea with his wife to explore the ancient farming systems of three East Asian countries. Two old Americans in their twenties had in-depth exchanges with farmers of the three ancient farming peoples in East Asia and wrote a book, the Farmer of four thousand years. In it, he said of agriculture in East Asia, "nearly 500 million people have always maintained such a way of living, mainly on small plots of land and a small number of products." the land area is even smaller than the soil-modified high-quality farms in the United States. "almost every foot of land is used to grow crops to provide food, fuel and fabric. Everything that can be eaten is considered to be food for humans or livestock and poultry. Things that cannot be eaten or worn are used as fuel. The excreta of the organism, the ashes of the burning fuel, and the damaged cloth all go back to the soil, turning the waste into the most effective fertilizer. "these working people believe that one more effort can be rewarded. Rainy days and hot weather can not stop or delay their work. This seems to have become a golden rule, or simply put, it is the common sense of the working people.

From the eyes of an American who has studied the soil for many years, this kind of intensive farming is simply sacred and such an excellent farming quality. In fact, the farming quality of traditional Chinese farmers has lasted until today in the 21st century. If you investigate everywhere, you will find that the fields, the front and back of the house, and even some nooks and crannies of land are effectively used to grow crops or vegetables. The land plots of farmers in our country are relatively fragmented, with an average of 7-8 pieces of land per household, with an average of only about 1 mu of land. in some places, a family even has more than 10 or 20 pieces of land, most of which are only a few points in area, and the land management is especially highly small-scale scattered. Under such farming conditions, according to common sense, it is difficult to dig out the production capacity of the land. However, it is the unique distributed agricultural characteristics of small farmers in China that enable them to carry out intensive cultivation of agriculture. This small unit farming method not only has a strong ability of self-adaptation and self-adjustment on the one hand, it can adapt to different soil conditions, topographical conditions and farming methods, but on the other hand, it has fully tapped the potential of two aspects. one is to develop the farming potential of taking the family as a unit. Second, it makes full use of the production efficiency of the existing land and effectively expands the efficiency of land use. It should be noted that this farming model of small farmers, which is inextricably linked with the traditional clan society, has natural stability and sustainability, which is also a great stable force of China's economic and social development.

The second sharp weapon: small farmers and the relatively closed domestic market-despite the strong winds from east, west, north and south. Small farmers and isolation seem to be closely linked, and it is also one of the much-criticized drawbacks of Chinese agriculture. However, even if there is a malpractice, we still need to look at it from an objective point of view. moreover, whether it is a malpractice or not is still a question at this stage in China. When looking for a partner, we often say, "only what is suitable is the best." As for whether advanced or not is actually not the most important decisive factor, sometimes advanced is a kind of burden. The best combination of small farmers and a closed domestic market is Japan. The average tariff rate of Japan's imported agricultural products is 42%, the highest bound rate is 1706%, and the highest rate of milled rice is 777.7%. It is almost impossible for foreign agricultural products to be dumped against Japan. In the past, because the production cost of our agricultural products was very low and the price had a great advantage in the world, the domestic market was relatively closed relative to the international market. Even now, China's agricultural market, especially grain (except soybeans), still maintains a relatively independent trend compared with the international market. Judging from grain imports in 2014, China's imports of wheat, rice and rice all decreased compared with the same period last year, falling by 20.4% and 45.7% respectively, while corn imports increased slightly by 13.6%. On the whole, the domestic production and marketing of the main grain varieties except soybeans are basically balanced. Compared with foreign grain prices, domestic grain prices have not fluctuated too much in recent years. From 2004 to 2014, grain prices in the international market fluctuated by an average of about 20% a year, especially in 2008 and 2012, with fluctuations of more than 40% for the whole year, while domestic grain prices remained stable, with the purchase price of raw grain rising by about 10% a year, while the retail price of finished grain rose by about 8% annually, with little change from year to year. This kind of slightly closed food price stability is particularly important for big countries, how many countries want it but can't get it. When the world is surging, we can sit firmly in Diaoyutai and allow the strong winds from east, west, north and south to avoid the impact of various international crises. In fact, this has won a rare stable environment and redundancy for our other reform processes. When people are not worried about eating, the country can have more room for manoeuvre in other things.

The third sharp weapon: the integration of small farmers and modern science and technology-the external energy ring is opened. The previous paragraph saw an article on the Internet, which is also instructive to analyze the development limit of modern agriculture in China from the perspective of nitrogen fixation capacity. For thousands of years, manure has been used as the main fertilizer in Europe and Asia. According to the textual Research on the average Grain yield per mu in China (Yu Fei), the highest grain yield per mu in China was during the Ming and Qing dynasties, with an average yield of 1.302 stone per mu (wheat, 65.1kg) in the north and 2.604 stone per mu (rice) in the south. 130.2 kg). For thousands of years, the national average yield per mu has been far less than 100 kg. One of the important reasons is our ability to obtain nitrogen fertilizer, and the lack of rapid entry of external energy into plants is a major constraint to agricultural development. About 2.2kg of pure nitrogen is needed for every 100kg of rice, 2.5kg of pure nitrogen for 100kg of corn, 3.0kg of pure nitrogen for 100kg of wheat, and 2.5kg for compromise, which is equivalent to 500,600kg of human or pig manure (standard rotten manure). Or 1000 kg of cow manure and urine, or 500-1000 kg of green manure (about 2 mu of green manure without fertilization). This is about the annual "yield" of 2 adults, or 0.2 pigs, or 0.2 cattle (converted to standard rotten manure). At the same time, it should be noted that although large animals such as pigs and cattle are much higher than people in terms of the ability to "provide" fertilizer, a cow needs 20-30 mu of grassland or arable land (straw) to provide feed. Therefore, in a small-scale peasant economy, the number of large animals such as pigs and cattle raised by farmers is limited; when there is a shortage of arable land, the area of mountains, forests and grasslands that can be squeezed out to plant green manure or reserved for feed is also limited; therefore, the ability of farmers in agricultural society to "obtain" fertilizer is extremely limited. Therefore, the "prosperity" of the traditional small-scale peasant economy is limited by the total amount of "reasonable cultivated land" (about 1.2 billion mu) after retaining the necessary firewood and grass mountains (about 2.4 billion mu). The limit of the national total grain output is 120 million tons and the reasonable supporting population is 300 million people. It was not until 1828 that a German chemist named Wheeler synthesized urea artificially for the first time, and the door to modern fertilizer was opened. One of the important reasons is that the scientific and technological means we have today enable us to continuously introduce the external energy cycle into the energy cycle of agriculture. Once this external energy is involved, the development of agriculture will usher in qualitative changes. From a deeper point of view, if there is a more thorough means of external energy introduction in the future, the form of agriculture will also change fundamentally. Coupled with the corresponding germplasm resources revolution, the combination of distributed small-scale peasant management and modern agricultural science and technology makes traditional agriculture nirvana again, which still exudes its great vitality today.