Farmers are aging. Who's worried?

The key to solving the problem of "who will farm tomorrow" is to make farmers a decent profession and agriculture an attractive career and a promising industry.

The director of a kiwifruit planting cooperative in Chongqing has recently encountered the distress of "elderly farmers", according to media reports. The cooperative has transferred more than 800 mu of land, and the average age of the farmers employed is over 65. Among the more than 30 "elderly farmers", seven or eight suffer from high blood pressure. The cooperative buys a sphygmomanometer and needs to take the farmers' blood pressure before going to the fields.

Why not hire strong labor? The chairman said that the rural labor force is in short supply. In the past, there was a shortage of workers only when the farmers were busy, but now there is a shortage of people all the year round. Young people in their twenties and thirties do not know how to farm and do not want to farm. Most of those in their forties and fifties work in other places, and the rest of the farmers are old people over the age of 60.

The aging and aging of the rural labor force has become a common phenomenon in our country. Although the new agricultural operators have developed rapidly in recent years, most of the people who work in the fields are still the elderly. In the final analysis, the lack of attractiveness of agriculture is the reason why young people do not want to work in agriculture. First, if there is no "money scene" and work hard for a year, the income of one mu of land is not as good as that of odd jobs for a few days; second, there is no "future". If you become a farmer for a lifetime and grow land for a lifetime, what is there to do?

At present, China's economic development has entered a new normal, and the challenge of ensuring national food security is unprecedented. The agony of the aging of farmers is in fact the problem of "who will farm tomorrow". The key to solving this problem is to make farmers a decent profession and agriculture an attractive career and a promising industry. Guiding the transformation from traditional farmers to new professional farmers will become an important means to solve the shortage of rural labor force in our country.

To achieve this transformation, we need to make sustained efforts in rural reform. We will deepen the reform of the rural land system, further innovate the mode of land circulation and scale operation, guide the standardized and orderly transfer of land management rights, and actively develop various forms of moderate scale operation. We will actively and steadily promote the reform of the rural collective property rights system, invigorate rural collective property rights, and give farmers more property rights. There are also reform measures such as the household registration system, the equalization of public services, and new urbanization, all of which will help narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, make the allocation of resources more balanced between urban and rural areas, and attract more young people to return home to start their own businesses.

To achieve this transformation, we should actively promote the transformation and upgrading of traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. Both the Central Rural work Conference and document No. 1 proposed that modern industrial organizations such as industrial chain and value chain should be introduced into agriculture to promote the integration and interaction of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. We should not only use mechanization, standardization, and information to transform traditional agriculture, but also look deeper and farther, no longer limited to an industry, primary processing, finishing, sales, circulation, leisure and sightseeing. The extended industrial chain can be subdivided into countless links, giving rise to unlimited value-added opportunities. Agriculture has a broad space and has a bright future.

To achieve this transformation, we must strengthen the cultivation of new agricultural operators, especially new professional farmers. It is necessary to create conditions for the growth of a new type of professional farmers who are young, knowledgeable, skilled, managerial and operational. Create a good development environment for them, increase grain subsidies, provide technical support and professional training, improve social management and rural financial system, and make them feel at ease to stay in rural development. At the same time, it is necessary to formulate and improve relevant policies, create a social atmosphere that respects farming and farmers, attract more young college students or other young people who are interested in agriculture, and provide corresponding social security and financial rewards. guide them to work and start a business in rural areas.