Challenges and opportunities under the New situation of Rural Development

Note: after more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China has made remarkable achievements in rural development, the relationship between urban and rural areas has been greatly improved, the total amount of agricultural products has increased several times, a large number of rural population has gone to the cities, and farmers' income has increased significantly. However, economic development is always accompanied by problems that need to be solved constantly. We have worked hard to solve some old problems, and new problems lie ahead. A clear understanding of the overall situation of rural development is very necessary for formulating and adjusting relevant policies and better promoting rural development.

Pick a fight

Compared with the earlier period, there is indeed a new trend in China's rural development: the absolute production capacity of agricultural products has been greatly improved, but the relative advantage of the supply of agricultural products is insufficient in the context of the opening of the international market. it takes long-term efforts to change the endogenous conditions of international trade of agricultural products. The vast majority of farmers have begun to engage in production activities facing the market, and the socialized service system of production has been initially formed, but the process of transformation from part-time farmers to professional farmers is far from complete. A large number of rural people have entered the cities, and the urbanization rate has increased steadily. However, after the substantial reduction of the village population, the rural public service investment is faced with the dilemma of reduced efficiency. Agricultural products are highly market-oriented, but the degree of marketization of rural factors of production is low, which restricts the improvement of the level of agricultural modernization. The above-mentioned new situation of agricultural development contains great challenges.

First, agricultural costs continue to increase and agricultural competitiveness is relatively low, which threatens the dynamic balance of total supply and demand of agricultural products and adversely affects the overall operation of the national economy. As a big country, it is normal for agricultural products to go in and out in the international market, but at present, the domestic market prices of most of China's agricultural products are higher than those in the international market, and some meat and cotton are even more than double. In addition, the Engel coefficient of Chinese residents is much higher than that of developed countries, reaching more than 36%, which also shows that the high absolute level of agricultural prices has affected national life. The high price of agricultural products indirectly affects the national consumption ability and the tendency of employment choice, and becomes a negative factor of unreasonable economic structure.

Second, there are defects in the mode of agricultural technological progress, and the task of adjusting the technological route of agricultural modernization is arduous. Agricultural production relies too much on irrigation, and the scale of water-saving and rain-fed agriculture is too small; the correlation between animal husbandry production and grass industry is low, grassland productivity is extremely low, and feed consumption is huge; there is friction between small-scale household management and socialized services, which reduces the comprehensive efficiency of the agricultural industrial chain; agricultural material input "more water, more chemical fertilizers, more pesticides" has brought huge environmental problems.

Third, it is difficult to break through the barriers of rural migrant population to settle in cities. Large-scale rural transfer population has lived temporarily in cities for decades, while legal residence is far from the place of work, which makes it difficult to deepen the social division of labor, improve the level of human capital, and restrict the modernization of agricultural management system.

Fourth, rural construction is faced with a dilemma between efficiency and equality. When China's urbanization rate reaches 75%, it is expected to achieve roughly the same income of farmers and citizens. Achieving this goal not only means that a large number of existing farmers go to the cities, but also means that a large number of villages disappear or shrink into small professional farmers' settlements, a small number of villages will evolve into small cities, and a small number of villages will be transformed into professional villages. This means that it will be a huge waste to carry out "new rural construction" for millions of natural villages. However, if we do not consider the public service of the left-behind villagers at all, it will also violate the socialist principle of national governance. If the government artificially speeds up the adjustment of population distribution by "relocating villages and living together", it will inevitably increase social friction. How to comply with the requirements of urbanization, take into account the relationship between efficiency and equality, and realize humanistic urbanization, further policy innovation is needed.

Fifth, rural social governance is faced with the difficult problem of system innovation. The third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward the grand goal of the modernization of national governance, and how to link rural governance with this goal will be an arduous task. After a large number of villages disappear or shrink into small professional peasant household settlements, the establishment of administrative villages will no longer be of great significance, and the unity of urban and rural governance mechanisms will be realized in the future. Advancing this process gradually means a series of systematic adjustments of policies, which is an unprecedented test for policy makers.

Chance encounter

Although rural development faces many difficulties in further striding forward on a new stage, it should also be noted that the conditions for solving these problems are sufficient.

First of all, the ideological emancipation of the decision-making level has opened up more space for deepening reform. The 18th CPC National Congress established the reform policy of letting the market play a decisive role in economic activities, encouraging decision-makers to march into the deep-water area of land factor reform; the idea of developing a mixed economy put forward by the Central Committee is also conducive to breaking the traditional inherent thinking of the rural collective economic system and exploring various forms of realization of farmers' land property rights.

Secondly, the development of urban economy has greatly improved the ability of cities to absorb rural labor transfer, which is conducive to the establishment of modern agricultural management system. The employment elasticity of our country (the ratio of employment growth rate to economic growth rate) is much lower than that of developed countries during the period of rapid economic growth, and the urban employment potential is still great. In terms of purchasing power parity the level of per capita income in China is about 1 to 5 of that in the United States. the advantage of labor price is still significant and the potential for urban economy to continue to expand is huge. From the perspective of labor supply, there is still a lot of room for the release of rural labor force: China's agricultural added value accounts for less than 10% of the GDP of scale, while the proportion of labor used (based on the assumption of constant working time and technology) is about 23%. It is expected that the goal of equating farmers' income with urban household income can be achieved around 2035. At that time, China only needs about 30 million professional farmers, accounting for about 6 per cent of the total number of households in the country.

Thirdly, there is a lot of room to improve the potential of comprehensive utilization of agricultural resources, and agricultural technology has the advantage of backwardness. The land of our country is vast, and there is great potential for efficient development and utilization of land resources by using advanced agricultural technology. The area of grassland in China is huge, and the area of grassland that can be well used is more than 3 billion mu. By comparison, the total amount of feed grain in China has been equal to the total amount of food rations, and the potential of forage grass to replace feed grain is huge. In recent years, the revolution of dry farming agricultural technology in northwest China has brought the input-output effect of 1: 6, and caused a great increase in the yield of corn and potatoes. On the whole, compared with the developed countries, the average grain yield per unit area of the existing cultivated land in China has increased by about 15%. This alone can basically meet the domestic demand for grain for a long time in the future.

Finally the national capacity to support agriculture has been significantly enhanced. From 2011 to 2013, the total amount of funds invested by the central government in the field of agriculture, rural areas and farmers was about 3.65 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 15%. At present, the input from the central and local governments in the field of agriculture, rural areas and farmers is about 3 trillion yuan a year. Among them, the investment related to rural society accounts for 50%. Compared with the European Union and other developed countries and regions, the total amount of funds for supporting agriculture in China is not too small, but there is a great deficiency in the structure and efficiency of the funds for supporting agriculture. For example, from 1978 to 1999, the state invested an average of less than 30 cents per hectare in grassland construction each year, a drop in the ocean compared with the investment in major agricultural producing areas.

Change leather

The greater momentum of agricultural progress and rural development is the deepening of reform. The intensive introduction of reform measures in the past two years has reflected the determination and ambition of decision makers, and future reforms should focus on the following areas:

Take the development of family farms as the core to promote the innovation of agricultural management organization system. Consideration can be given to implementing a "professional agricultural operator registration system" aimed at protecting the production enthusiasm of professional farmers, so as to improve the targeting degree of national financial support for agriculture. Set a reasonable threshold for agricultural access to support agricultural operators to achieve specialization and scale. It is necessary to gradually and steadily develop real farmers' specialized cooperatives, help farmers' cooperatives become stronger and bigger, and train dozens of giant cooperatives across provinces, so as to give better play to the professional service role of cooperatives.

We will deepen the reform of the rural basic land system and the national land management system. It is necessary to promote the innovation of rural economic organizations and, on the premise of ensuring the legal status of collective ownership, firmly promote the confirmation and certification of land contract rights, so as to make farmers' land contract rights truly become farmers' property rights, on this basis to develop the rural land market. It is necessary to establish a land planning and management system with clear functions, reasonable division of labor, effective supervision and smooth operation, and strengthen the protection of agricultural land. The state may implement a "national agricultural protection zone system" that is more conducive to the protection of cultivated land, and delegate the authority of land management in densely populated areas outside agricultural protected areas to local governments, so as to promote the healthy development of urbanization.

Change the mode of agricultural technology progress and adjust the management system of agricultural technology research and extension. It is necessary to vigorously improve the equipment level of modern agricultural technology, and regard the development of water-saving agriculture and dry farming agricultural technology as the main direction of agricultural technological progress. Private capital should be encouraged to develop a series of deserts with more active policies. We should take the property rights protection policy as the core, take the state support funds as the supplement, vigorously introduce market factors, encourage private capital to enter the field of desert transformation, and expand various types of dry farming.

We will further activate the urban economy and lower the threshold for the transfer of agricultural population into cities. First, it is necessary to deepen the reform of the population registration system, simplify the population registration system, and implement the "residence permit system" among the transferred agricultural population on a large scale as soon as possible. Second, it is necessary to strengthen scientific planning and guide the rational distribution of urban and rural population in accordance with the needs of industrialization and agricultural modernization. Realize the simultaneous development of large and medium-sized cities and small cities (towns) in about ten urban agglomerations; appropriately merge agricultural counties outside the urban agglomeration, control urban expansion, and support the large-scale transfer of agricultural population. Support professional farmers to live separately and develop modern farms.

We will reform and improve the system of national finance and financial support for agriculture, and improve the economic efficiency of supporting agriculture. First, it is necessary to distinguish the input categories of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" and establish an independent agricultural support account system. We will gradually reduce financial support for "leading enterprises" in the field of circulation and processing of agricultural products. The aim and transparency of financial support for agriculture should be improved on the basis of the system of agricultural protected areas and the registration system of professional agricultural operators. The second is to formulate regulations on financial support for agriculture as soon as possible to support agriculture in accordance with the law. Third, vigorously promote agricultural financial innovation and improve the agricultural financial system.

To achieve the unity of urban and rural social governance. Consideration should be given to no longer distinguishing between "villagers' committees" and "neighborhood committees", and amending the relevant laws and promulgating the Organic Law of neighborhood Committees that does not distinguish between urban and rural areas. It can be considered that most of the existing towns and a small number of villages of a certain scale should be set up as "county cities", and with the advance of agricultural modernization, the existing natural villages will be gradually transformed into small professional peasant household settlements and directly under the jurisdiction of "county cities", so that farmers will become residents of residential areas regardless of urban and rural areas, and on this basis, a unified social governance structure of urban and rural areas will be established.