How to understand the New Agricultural Modernization with Chinese characteristics

Interviewer: Zheng Fengtian, Professor, School of Agriculture and Rural Development, Renmin University of China

Interview host: Zhang Liying

Editor's note: Premier Li Keqiang published an article entitled "accelerating Agricultural Modernization driven by Reform and Innovation" in the fourth issue of Qiushi in 2015. This year's Central "No. 1 document" also takes agricultural modernization as an important theme. In view of this, Qiushi specially invited Professor Zheng Fengtian of the School of Agriculture and Rural Development of Renmin University of China to interpret the issues related to agricultural modernization.

Wonderful ideas:

■ from an international point of view, the food issue has never been an economic issue. The former US Secretary of State said that food is a weapon. Once China imports grain on a large scale from the world, it will not only be the issue of food prices, if there are political disputes between countries, it is easy to cause huge political risks.

The "new type" of ■ means that agricultural modernization pursues the unity of quantity, quality and benefit of agricultural products. By promoting the adjustment of agricultural structure, speeding up the development of agricultural industrialization, and pursuing a sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural development mode.

■ China's agriculture actually has several functions: the first one to engage in grain production to satisfy the problem of feeding 1.3 billion people. The second function is that farmers' land provides a kind of social security function for farmers. Most of the farmers in our country do not have old-age insurance, and land can provide some social security functions for farmers. The third function is ecological versatility to provide a beautiful environment.

The reason why ■ says that land ownership belongs to the collective, farmers have the right to contract, the right of management is the best arrangement, because on the one hand, it solves the inefficiency brought about by complete collectivization. Farmers' right to contract is a kind of property right, and it is impossible for the collective to take it back. Leaving land in the hands of farmers must be the most efficient, because farmers do not need external supervision costs to cultivate their own land. this institutional arrangement solves the problem of the efficiency of private ownership of land in the West. On the other hand, through the transfer of management rights, the management efficiency is released again.

Interview record:

Qiushi: Hello, Mr. Zheng. Both the Central Rural work Conference at the end of 2014 and the "Central document No. 1" in 2015 regard agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics as an important theme. Please briefly introduce the basic connotation of the new agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics.

Zheng Fengtian: the term agricultural modernization has been put forward for many years, from the initial water conservancy to mechanization, and then to information, the connotation of agricultural modernization has been evolving. At the Central Rural work Conference, Premier Li Keqiang proposed to build a new type of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics, and its connotation has three changes compared with the past:

The first is that the overall goal has changed. The goal of the whole agricultural modernization has changed from the original single pursuit of quantity to the pursuit of the unity of quantity, quality and benefit of agricultural products.

The second is that the approach adopted has changed. The way of realizing agricultural modernization has gradually changed from relying solely on material means in the past to promoting the adjustment of agricultural structure, accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode, and pursuing sustainable eco-friendly agriculture.

The third is that the evaluation indicators have changed. The evaluation index of realizing agricultural modernization has changed from the original simple material equipment, such as output index and agricultural machinery index, to modern agriculture with synchronous quantity, quality and benefit, environment-friendly, sustainable development and industrial development.

In his speech at the Central Rural work Conference, Premier Li Keqiang mentioned "new agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics" and pointed out that "Chinese characteristics" and "new" are the two basic requirements of agricultural modernization. As far as I understand it, "new type" means that agricultural modernization is to pursue the unity of the quantity, quality and efficiency of agricultural products, to accelerate the development of agricultural industrialization by promoting the adjustment of agricultural structure, and to pursue sustainable and eco-friendly agricultural development. The "Chinese characteristics" is that China's agricultural modernization is different from that of Europe and the United States. The reason for the difference is very simple. In the countries with the most developed agriculture in the world, they are basically large farms, and our country's households are less than 10 mu of land, which is small-scale farmers in East Asia. China's agriculture actually has several functions: the first one is engaged in grain production to satisfy the problem of feeding 1.3 billion people. The second function is that farmers' land provides a kind of social security function for farmers. Most of the farmers in our country do not have old-age insurance, and land can provide some social security functions for farmers. The third function is ecological versatility to provide a beautiful environment. These can be said to be the basic connotation of the new type of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics.

Qiushi Network: in his speech at the Central Rural work Conference, Premier Li Keqiang pointed out that it is necessary to actively promote agricultural restructuring and speed up the development of agricultural industrialization on the basis of stabilizing grain production. In your opinion, under the current situation of agriculture in our country, how to develop agricultural industrialization and promote the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries?

Zheng Fengtian: the initial purpose of developing agricultural industrialization is to solve the problem of "small production and big market" in China's agriculture. "small-scale production" refers to the operation of farmers' households, and "big market" means that the market is relatively far away from farmers and has a relatively large scale.

Agriculture in China is a typical "small-scale production big market". The amount of land owned by each household is limited, so it is difficult to form a scale, so we can only connect with the big market by means of companies and farmers. Take milk production as an example, farmers raise cows to provide fresh milk, then are acquired and processed by dairy companies, and then transported to the city to sell. This model includes four main bodies: farmers-companies-logistics-merchants. Such an industrialization model plays a certain role in the stage of food and clothing, but it is also found that there are many drawbacks from the well-off stage. For example, the breach of contract between companies and farmers is very serious. Once there is a surplus of milk on the market, the company will not accept the milk of farmers, and there will be great problems in farmers' marketing, as reflected by the recent dairy farmers pouring milk and killing cows. When there is a milk shortage, farmers sit on the ground and start the price. In addition, especially when the industrial chain is separated, there are speculative phenomena, such as the melamine incident, in which small farmers add water to their milk and then add melamine, causing malignant food safety incidents. For example, farmers raise milk, milk is taken away by the company, processed into milk powder, selling milk powder is the business of the company, the chain between each other is unilateral, broken, the best way to solve this situation is the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries.

Japan began to develop the integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries since 1996, while South Korea has also been doing so in recent years. They are called the sixth industrialization, so why is it called the sixth industry? The primary industry is agriculture and planting. The secondary industry is processing, and the tertiary industry is circulation services. One plus two plus three happens to be six, and one times two times three is also six, so it is called the sixth industrialization. The integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries means that farmers not only have to produce, but also process, and it is best to sell and make brands. In this way, to extend the industrial chain is to integrate the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and a peasant household will become an agricultural enterprise. For farmers, from the original planting industry, to processing to services, profits are in the hands of farmers, which can not only improve farmers' income but also ensure food safety.

According to the situation of our country, the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries can take many forms, such as innovating circulation methods, promoting various forms of agricultural marketing docking, including direct marketing, allowing farmers to set up cooperatives, and directly connecting communities, consumers, and supermarkets; for example, it is necessary to develop grain processing industry and intensive processing of agricultural products in major grain producing areas to increase added value.

Qiushi: in his speech at the Central Rural work Conference, Premier Li Keqiang mentioned that to promote agricultural modernization, we must closely focus on the core task of ensuring national food security. What is the current situation of food security in China?

Zheng Fengtian: there should be no problem with China's food security as a whole. In addition to soybean imports, grain supply mainly depends on independent production, which accounts for more than 90% of grain supply. There are two main problems in China's food security: first, from the perspective of grain production, the environment of grain production resources in China is deteriorating, and the pollution of soil and water resources is serious; in addition, the cost of grain production is also increasing, and the input of manpower and material resources is also increasing. second, from the perspective of grain demand, the proportion of grain demand decreases, while the demand for feed grain and industrial grain increases, which will add new pressure to China's grain production. Due to the influence of feed grain and industrial grain, the demand of corn, soybean and other varieties increases, and the domestic production can not meet the demand gradually. Therefore, we should vigorously promote agricultural modernization, which is also an urgent requirement to ensure national food security.

Premier Li Keqiang also said in his speech that the food issue must first calculate the safety account, that is, food security must be guaranteed first, but economic accounts must also be taken into account. Our country has realized the "eleven consecutive growth", but also paid a huge price of resources and environment. The growth of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is much faster than that of grain output.

With regard to food security, there is another issue that needs to be paid attention to. Internationally, the food issue has never been an economic issue. The former Secretary of State of the United States said that food is a weapon. Once China imports grain on a large scale from the world, it will not only be the issue of food prices, if there are political disputes between countries, it is easy to cause huge political risks. Therefore, China insists on defining food security as national security, and must maintain a certain rate of grain self-sufficiency.

Qiushi net: some netizens believe that land transfer has changed the relations of production, resulting in the transformation of a large number of farmers into agricultural workers who are not self-sufficient in food. How to steadily promote agricultural modernization and at the same time protect farmers' rights and interests in all aspects?

Zheng Fengtian: I think this is a misunderstanding. This year's "No. 1 document" of the Central Committee especially emphasizes the regulations on land transfer, that is, to whom it is transferred and what it will be used for after the transfer. If we can continue to grow grain after the transfer of land, although the farmers have changed, the grain is still growing, then there will be no problem. Once the land flows into the hands of enterprises and starts to engage in a variety of non-agricultural industries, it may be a problem, so the crux of the problem is whether the land continues to grow food after the land is transferred out.

Netizens say that land transfer changes production relations because it is not clear about national policy. In our country, the ownership of rural land belongs to the collective, and farmers have the right of contract and management. Land transfer refers to the transfer of land management rights to other farmers or economic organizations by farmers with land contractual management rights, that is, the retention of contracting rights and the transfer of management rights. Ownership has not changed, that is to say, relations of production have not changed, but on the basis of insisting on ensuring ownership, we should stabilize the right to contract and invigorate the right to use.

From a worldwide point of view, China's proposal of the three-right system of land is a good institutional arrangement under the current background. China has little land and a large population, and it is impossible for land to be occupied by a small number of people, so collective ownership is a relatively good arrangement. It is wrong to change China's land to private ownership. The reason why the ownership of land belongs to the collective, farmers have the right to contract, the right of management is the best arrangement, because on the one hand, it solves the inefficiency brought about by complete collectivization, and farmers' right to contract is a kind of property rights. it is impossible for the collective to take it back. Leaving land in the hands of farmers must be the most efficient, because farmers do not need external supervision costs to cultivate their own land. this institutional arrangement solves the problem of the efficiency of private ownership of land in the West. On the other hand, through the transfer of management rights, the management efficiency is released again. Therefore, the system of separation of rights of rural land in China is more suitable for the current situation of China, and it is more practical than simply realizing the private ownership of land in the West, which is something with Chinese characteristics.

If private ownership of land is implemented in China's rural areas, it will cause great problems. Because once the land becomes private, he can sell the land at any time, which can not guarantee that the cultivated land will continue to grow food, which will have a great impact on the country's food security; on the other hand, the sale of land is not conducive to rural development and stability.

Qiushi Network: you have been engaged in the study of agriculture, rural areas and farmers for many years, and you are an expert in this field. Combined with the national conditions of our country, please talk about the practices of foreign countries in promoting agricultural modernization. What can we learn from them?

Zheng Fengtian: first of all, there are many practices in the United States that are worth learning. For example, the United States uses high-tech varieties to increase output, and China is also mentioning agricultural science and technology, but the actual input of manpower and material resources is not enough; the degree of modernization still needs to be further improved, and the contribution rate of science and technology also needs to be improved. In addition, the United States implements a "fallow plan" for cultivated land, and the total amount of cultivated land in China is not small, but not much per capita. Excessive land reclamation and indiscriminate application of pesticides have led to a decline in land productivity and a lack of increase in unit output. this requires moderate fallow to restore land fertility. But our country should also avoid the bad side of the United States, for example, in the aquaculture industry, the use of a large number of hormones, long-term consumption of hormone-injected agricultural products is extremely dangerous; including genetically modified foods, Europeans are very cautious. In a word, if we use technology to promote production, our country can learn, but if we abuse technology, we should abandon it.

Secondly, Japan and South Korea use cooperatives to develop modern agriculture and extend the agricultural industry chain through the integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, which is worth learning. One of the important characteristics of Japanese agriculture is that it adopts the land saving model of cooperatives, and the labor intensive management is formed by agricultural cooperative organizations and scattered farmers, and the role of its farmers' association is famous all over the world. With the support of the financial and material resources of the Japanese government, the Peasants' Association has established various forms of economic relations with farmers through its institutions and extensive business activities throughout the country. it plays a role in connecting small farmers with the big market before, during and after production, and plays an important role in effectively preventing commercial capital from exploiting farmers and protecting their interests. The Japanese Peasants' Association is not a pure economic organization. In addition to fulfilling its economic functions, it also has the dual responsibilities of helping the government implement agricultural policies and exerting pressure on the government on behalf of farmers. It has played an important role in the process of agricultural modernization in Japan.

Third, Brazil attaches importance to the power of agricultural science and technology. In the past decade, Brazil's agricultural production capacity has increased by 70%, while the acreage has only increased from 37.8 million hectares to 39.7 million hectares in the same period. These advances can only be made by science and technology. Article 1, paragraph 1, of decree No. 10.332 issued by Brazil on December 19, 2001 clearly stipulates that the state shall spend 17.5% of the total tax revenue in that year on agricultural and animal husbandry science and technology projects. The Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Research Company, Brazil's main agricultural research institution, has 8421 employees and 40 research centers throughout the country, introducing and attracting foreign technology, which has made a lot of contributions to Brazil's agricultural development. The Brazilian government also provides adequate financial services to farmers so that farmers can get sufficient capital to carry out agricultural production. For example, according to the output value and acreage of the previous year, farmers can get loans equivalent to 100% of the production funds according to the scale. Commercial banks are required by law to grant a certain proportion of agricultural credit to farmers.