Two current propositions in the field of agriculture, rural areas and farmers

In the context of urbanization, the direction of the policy on agriculture, rural areas and farmers has become the focus of debate among academic circles and policy departments intentionally or unintentionally. How to judge the current national conditions and agricultural conditions in China, and what kind of urbanization strategy and policies and measures should be adopted have formed two different lines of debate between the academic circles and policy research departments in China. The two lines are based on different judgments on the current national conditions and agricultural conditions, and have completely different suggestions on China's urbanization and policies on agriculture, rural areas and farmers. One line can be called the "simultaneous school of the four modernizations", which is not only the current mainstream opinion, but also the mainstream of policy practice from the central to the local level. Another route can be called "small-scale peasant economy school", which also occupies a certain position in policy practice, and it is also a voice and proposition that China should not ignore at present.

Two presuppositions and eight theories of the "four Modernization synchronization School"

A typical saying of the simultaneous school of the four modernizations is to promote agricultural modernization synchronously in the in-depth development of industrialization and urbanization, and later added "informationization" to form the synchronization of the "four modernizations". Whether it is the "synchronization of the three modernizations" or "the synchronization of the four modernizations", its core meaning is to promote agricultural modernization with the rapid progress of industrialization, informatization and urbanization. In other words, in the process of the "four modernizations", we should eliminate traditional agriculture and the "small-scale peasant economy" that forms the basis of traditional agriculture, reconstruct the basic organization of agriculture, and transform the small-scale peasant economy into agricultural modernization based on scale operation. In the vision of "synchronization of the four modernizations", urbanization and traditional agriculture are opposite and substitute for each other, which is the relationship between the rapid development of urbanization and the rapid disappearance of traditional agriculture and the rapid exit of small-scale peasant economy.

There are two key points in the presupposition of "synchronization of the four modernizations". One is that China is in the process of rapid urbanization, and the process of urbanization is the process of changing the rural population into the urban population. When the farmers go to the cities, the urbanization rate is high, and the agricultural population naturally decreases. In particular, when a large number of rural young and middle-aged workers come to the cities, who will farm becomes a big problem; promoting land transfer, developing modern agriculture, and engaging in the "synchronization of the four modernizations" have also become the due meaning of the policy on agriculture, rural areas and farmers. Second, traditional agriculture and the small-scale peasant economy are inefficient, and it is impossible for farmers to get rich by relying on the small-scale peasant economy of "one mu per capita and no more than 10 mu per household." only by expanding the scale of management, developing modern agriculture, and promoting agricultural modernization, can farmers become rich and farmers can be well-off.

Based on the above two presuppositions of "the synchronization of the four modernizations", the policy must allow farmers to stay in cities after entering cities, and turn the current "semi-urbanized" migrant workers into real urban population who can settle in cities. Therefore, corresponding reforms should be carried out in household registration, housing, social security, and even rural land system to adapt to the problem of farmers living in cities. At the same time, in the field of agriculture, we must promote capital to go to the countryside, "confirm the right and land", promote and standardize land circulation, support large-scale operation, encourage farmers to go to cities, turn farmers' homestead and housing into property rights, and let the "separation of rights" of cultivated land. So that the right to operate cultivated land can be mortgaged and guaranteed, and so on.

There are several common views in the public opinion of "the synchronization of the four modernizations". One is to attack the urban-rural dual structure, thinking that the urban-rural dual structure is the main obstacle restricting the current urbanization in China, while deliberately ignoring the fact that the current urban-rural dual structure in China has actually become a protective social structure. nor do we understand the fact that land is actually basic security and social insurance for farmers, while basic security and social insurance cannot be traded; second, we think that traditional agriculture is inefficient. Third, the theory that small farmers cannot get rich; fourth, the theory that small farmers cannot be organized into inefficiency; fifth, the theory of farmers' rights; sixth, the theory of who will farm the fields; the most typical is that young people in rural areas who are now in cities are unwilling to go back to farming; seventh, the theory of land abandonment; eighth, the theory of agricultural blood loss, and so on.

Small-scale peasant economy is the "secret weapon" for China to realize modernization.

As opposed to the synchronized school of the four modernizations is the small-scale peasant economic school. The small-scale peasant economy school believes that at present, China still has a rural population of 700 million, including nearly 300 million agricultural labor force. In addition, so far, most of the about 260 million migrant workers who work in cities and do business have not yet received the income and employment conditions that can really live in a decent place in the city. Most migrant workers only go to cities and towns to work and do business when they are young, and they may return to rural areas for farming when they are older. Moreover, the parents and children of the vast majority of migrant workers still stay in the countryside. Through the intergenerational division of labor, the older parents earn agricultural income, and the young children work in cities to earn their income. While the cost of living in the village is low, self-sufficient economy can reduce the consumption expenditure of peasant families. Such a structure with more income and less expenditure enables peasant families to have economic savings and a relatively high quality of life.

In response to the problem that the simultaneous groups of the four modernizations are worried about unmanned farming in rural areas in the future, the small-scale peasant economic school believes that although young people do not want to work for agriculture and want to live respectfully in cities, under the current level of economic development and industrial structure in China, it is impossible for cities to provide employment and income conditions for all people who enter the cities to live in decent homes. This has nothing to do with policies and institutions, but only with the stage of economic development, which is why the proportion of formal employment among urban migrants in almost all developing countries is low and there are large-scale urban slums. This situation means that most of the migrant workers who came to the city when they were young struggled in the city for 20 or 30 years, but they still could not live in the city with dignity. If they could not return to the countryside, they could only be reduced to urban slums. Compared with urban slums, which are both undecent, unsafe and insecure, returning to the countryside is a rational choice. Returning to the countryside is a process, that is, after a certain age, such as 40 or 45, when they are not able to obtain decent employment and income conditions to integrate into the city, they have to consider returning to their hometown. After about 5 years or even 10 years of return, migrant workers will eventually return to the countryside. After 10 years, they have long been familiar with rural life, learned agricultural production, and become the main force of farming.

In the current stage of economic development, it is impossible for most migrant workers to live in the city in a decent way, and the number of migrant workers returning home will be extremely large. It is certainly not a problem who will farm.

The small-scale peasant economic school believes that China's urbanization is a long process and cannot be achieved overnight. The urbanization of developed countries has been calculated in the past hundred years. China has only had more than 30 years since the reform and opening up accelerated urbanization, and it will take 30 or even 50 years to complete the urbanization. With the acceleration of urbanization, farmers entering the cities cannot obtain stable employment and income, and they cannot urbanize honorably, and there are bound to be large and difficult-to-govern slums in cities that exist in other developing countries. Under the current institutional framework of protected urban-rural dual structure, urban farmers can return to their hometown, making the countryside a stabilizer and reservoir for China's modernization. Under the condition that the rural population is still large and farmers in cities can still return to their hometown, promote the circulation of rural land, encourage capital to go to the countryside, promote modern agriculture, and accelerate the development of agricultural modernization, or most of the farmers who still have to rely on land for survival may lose their land and their hometown. This is not only inhumane to the peasants, but also deprives China of the buffer space and stabilizer of modernization in rural areas. The development is bound to be unstable and the country loses its ability to adjust. This is an extremely dangerous thing.

The small-scale peasant economic school believes that the current basic management system in rural areas still has a huge room to play a role. It is the basic rural management system and the dual structure of urban and rural areas that have made China achieve a miracle that has attracted worldwide attention since the reform and opening up, which is the key for China to get out of the "middle-income trap" in the next 30 years. The small-scale peasant economy group opposes the land transfer promoted by the government, believing that agriculture for the elderly is efficient; agriculture is already the basic security and social insurance, and it is impossible to expect agriculture to get rich. The small-scale peasant economic school has also formed a systematic understanding from the aspects of acquaintance society, social value, self-sufficient economy, social network and capital, backbone farmers and so on.

In the view of the small-scale peasant economic school, the relationship between urbanization and traditional agriculture is a relationship that complements and supports each other, rather than replacing each other and not opposing each other. It is the Chinese-style small-scale peasant economy that provides the most important foundation for China's rapid modernization and for China to get out of the "middle-income trap". Small-scale peasant economy is the secret weapon for China to realize modernization.