Understanding farmers is good for supporting farmers

To enrich, improve and support farmers, we should not only create conditions to encourage the development of new agricultural operators, but also should not forget the "silent majority".

Some time ago, I participated in a face-to-face forum between financial institutions and the main body of the new agricultural business. After the discussion, participants from financial institutions lamented: today's farmers are really not simple, and they are so different from the past. They are not only surprised by the understanding of these large grain growers and the heads of agricultural specialized cooperatives on crop planting methods, the situation of agricultural production at home and abroad, and the trend of the grain market; they are even surprised by these new agricultural operators' understanding of futures and other financial instruments, and their understanding in some aspects is even better than that of these professionals.

Similar exclamations have often been heard in recent years. Some people lamented that the appearance of farmers was "becoming more and more foreign", while others lamented that farmers' minds were "getting smarter and smarter". The "unexpected" image of farmers makes them feel a strong shock.

In fact, the depth of this shock is the lack of understanding of farmers. With the deepening of rural reform and the pace of agricultural and rural development, the group of farmers is indeed undergoing profound changes. When agricultural production changes from traditional retail operation to intensive, organized and socialized modern agricultural management system, new types of agricultural production and management subjects such as large grain growers, family farms and professional cooperatives continue to emerge in various places. With the help of the good policy of strengthening farmers, enriching farmers and benefiting farmers, and relying on the increasingly rich information and capital channels in rural areas, they have become a new force driving villagers to get rich and build modern agriculture.

While we can see that farmers have made great progress in modern agriculture, we should also see the new problems that have emerged at present. At present, in China's rural areas, there are still many farmers whose scientific and cultural quality is not high, lack of access to wealth, and even some farmers have not been lifted out of poverty. Those who get rich first are still on the road to wealth; those who go out, stay behind, work in agriculture, or do business. The group of farmers shows more and more strong pluralistic characteristics.

Farmers are the main body of agricultural and rural development. The development of farmers is not only the basis of agricultural modernization, but also the end-result of agricultural modernization. How to realize farmers' modernization is the most arduous task to solve the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers. If China wants to be rich, farmers must be rich. To solve the problem of "who will farm the land" in the future, the core is to solve the problem of farmers. An important prerequisite for enriching, improving and supporting farmers is to have a comprehensive understanding of farmers.

In order to have a comprehensive understanding of this group of farmers, we should first get rid of their "stereotype" and dynamically see that this group is becoming increasingly diverse and in line with modernization. Perhaps when people no longer exclaim the changes of the farmers, they will have a complete and accurate understanding of the farmers. Secondly, we should face the reality squarely, whether the main body of the new agricultural business, the left-behind elderly, the left-behind children, or the poor farmers, they are all real farmers living in the vast rural areas of China. Just like the understanding of today's China, the modern city with high-rise buildings, improved infrastructure and public services is China, and the vast rural areas that are still not rich, still not beautiful, and still relatively backward are also China.

To enrich farmers, improve farmers and support farmers, on the one hand, we should create more conditions to encourage the development of new agricultural operators, because they represent the direction of the development of agricultural modernization in our country. But we should not forget those "silent majority", but also find ways to let them live a down-to-earth, warm, "sense of achievement" life, because only when their lives are good, the development of agriculture and rural areas will be really good.