Take the road of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics

The outstanding characteristics of China's national conditions are the large population, the relative shortage of agricultural resources, the large consumption of food, and the insufficient capacity of agriculture to support the population. How to feed about 20% of the world's population with about 10% of the world's cultivated land and 6.5% of the world's water resources has long been the number one development problem facing modern China.

Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy. After the founding of New China, China's agricultural development and transformation is essentially agricultural modernization, and the special national conditions determine that we must embark on a road of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics. This road is not only one of the specific roads of "China's general road", but also an important part of China's "five-in-one" socialist modernization. This is an objective law that has been repeatedly proved by history in our large developing country with a population of more than one billion. This paper examines the development process, characteristics and direction of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics, with a view to looking forward to the future of China's agricultural development.

I. the period of preliminary transformation and development of agriculture (1949-1978)

The period from the founding of New China to the reform and opening up is the historical starting point of China's agricultural modernization and transformation. During this period, China is not only the most populous country in the world, but also the largest rural populous country, but also the first impoverished country. Mao Zedong had a deep understanding of China's basic national conditions. In his report at the second Plenary session of the Seventh CPC Central Committee, he pointed out: "China still has about 90% scattered individual agricultural economy and handicraft economy, which is backward. This is not much different from ancient times, and about 90% of our economic life remains in ancient times." "for quite a long time to come, our agriculture and handicrafts, in terms of their basic form, will still be scattered and individual, that is to say, similar to those in ancient times." This shows that China is a very typical traditional agricultural society and underdeveloped country.

In 1952, the proportion of China's total rural population was 87.5%, and the proportion of agricultural labor force was 88.0%. At that time, almost all of the rural population were absolutely poor. In fact, China's agricultural labor productivity is extremely low, according to Angus. Madison calculated that if calculated at constant prices in 1987, China's agricultural added value in 1952 was only 92.3% of that in 1933, and agricultural labor productivity was equivalent to 94.8% of that in 1933. This shows that the development level of China's agriculture in 1952 is not as good as that in 1933.

When the people's Republic of China was founded in 1949, the level of agricultural production was much lower than that in 1936. National agricultural production dropped by 25 percent compared with 1936, of which grain fell by 22.1 percent and cotton by 48 percent.

Historically, China is still a very typical famine country. During the Great Famine in the South in 1946 and 1947, 17.5 million people died of starvation in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hunan provinces alone. During the three-year national economic recovery period, agricultural production recovered obviously, but calculated at constant prices (1987 prices), China's total agricultural output value in 1952 was only 93% of that in 1933, and the agricultural added value was equivalent to 92.3%.

Since the founding of New China, China's agricultural development has been directly affected by the government's agricultural reform policies. Angus? Madison believes that since 1949, China has made six major policy changes that affect the agricultural system, but not every policy adjustment has been successful, which is a process of continuous adjustment and improvement. In essence, this kind of policy adjustment is to adjust the relationship between the state and farmers and between industry and agriculture under the background of accelerating industrialization. Practice is the only criterion for testing policies: all good policies can achieve the goals of "increasing agricultural production" and "increasing farmers' income" at the same time. On the contrary, it is impossible to achieve the goal or only one of the goals.

The first time was the land reform, and it was also the most successful reform of "liberating the peasants". As soon as the people's Republic of China was founded, land reform was regarded as the top priority. On June 28, 1950, the eighth meeting of the Committee of the Central people's Government adopted the Land Reform Law of the people's Republic of China. The first general principle states the basic purpose of land reform: "abolish the land ownership system of feudal exploitation by the landlord class." implement the land ownership of the peasants, so as to liberate the rural productive forces, develop agricultural production and open the way for the industrialization of New China. " By the end of 1952, more than 300 million landless and little land farmers across the country had obtained 700 million mu of land and other means of production free of charge, exempted from the land rent of 70 billion jin of grain a year, and greatly liberated the peasants. By 1952, China's grain output had increased by 44.8% compared with 1949 and exceeded the highest annual output before liberation by 18.1%. In the same period, China's grain yield per unit area increased by 28.4% compared with 1949. In 1953, the net monetary income of farmers increased by 123.6% over 1949, and the average net monetary income per capita increased by 111.5%. Farmers' purchasing power of consumer goods has increased exponentially, with an increase of 111% in 1953 over 1949, and the average purchasing power of consumer goods per capita has doubled. In 1953, compared with 1949, farmers' retained grain increased by 28.2%, of which grain for domestic use increased by 33.6%. The Land Reform Law of the people's Republic of China is not only an economic program and economic policy in line with China's national conditions, but also an epoch-making land reform in Chinese history. As Mao Zedong said, "We did not do land reform until Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wenwu, Duke of Zhou, Confucius and Sun Yat-sen." The land reform is in line with China's national conditions and is the largest and most successful rural reform in China in the 20th century. From May 1946 to the end of 1952, it took only more than six years for Communist Party of China to complete this large-scale land reform.

Due to the great success of the land reform, the CPC was eager to make the transition to socialism in extremely poor and vast rural areas, and soon made a second policy adjustment and carried out socialist transformation in rural areas. specifically, it is the implementation of mutual-aid groups or primary cooperatives. This means that the road of agricultural development in China has shifted from the mode of private ownership of land and individual family business to the road of cooperation, that is, from primary cooperatives to senior cooperatives, and then to people's communes. In the process of agricultural cooperation, although agricultural production is still growing and farmers' income is still increasing, farmers' autonomy and autonomy have been restricted. at the same time, it also directly affected the growth rate of total agricultural output and farmers' consumption. In 1953 and 1954, the total agricultural output increased by 1.9% and 1.7% respectively, and the consumption level of rural residents increased by 2.8% and 1.2% respectively.

In January 1956, the Communist Party of China made its third policy adjustment, and the National Program for Agricultural Development (draft) from 1956 to 1967, chaired by Mao Zedong, planned the goals of agricultural primary cooperation and advanced agricultural cooperation. It took only one year to develop from primary cooperatives to senior cooperatives, and by the end of 1956, the number of farmers joining senior cooperatives had reached 87.8% of the total number of farmers (see table 1). In fact, after the completion of the agricultural cooperative movement in 1956, grain production did not increase significantly, while livestock decreased greatly, agricultural productivity was destroyed, and the consumption level of farmers was directly affected. The consumption level of rural residents increased by 1.3% in 1956 and 2.0% in 1957.

Although junior and senior cooperatives have adjusted their relations of production by leaps and bounds, they adjusted for the fourth time in 1958. On July 16, Mao Zedong put forward: "our direction should be to gradually and sequentially form a large commune of 'industry (industry), agriculture (agriculture), commerce (exchange), learning (culture and education), and soldiers (that is, armed forces of the whole people)'. Thus constitute the basic unit of our society." At the end of the same year, people's communes were established in almost all the rural areas of the country. 123 million farmers from 753000 high-level cooperatives are allocated to 26000 large people's communes, each with about 4600 farmers and 6700 labourers. Among these people's communes, there are 500000 production brigades and more than 3 million production teams. This not only directly affected the consumption level of farmers, but also had a great impact on agricultural production. In 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961, the agricultural added value increased by 0.4%,-15.9% and 1.4% respectively.

China's agricultural policy was adjusted for the fifth time in 1962. Although the people's commune lasted until the mid-1980s, agricultural management shifted to smaller production units, with an average of 30 production teams. Private plots have been restored, farmers' markets have been reopened, and commune canteens have been cancelled. The central government has allocated a large amount of money to support agricultural modernization, including the purchase of chemical fertilizers, power tools and tractors. The remuneration of farmers is calculated on the basis of the work points recorded by the collective. Under this system, the reward and enthusiasm of labor efforts are far lower than those of the farming system with farmers as the main body of decision-making.

From 1952 to 1978, the main structural indicators of rural areas and agriculture changed historically with the development of China as a whole. During this period, the growth of agricultural output mainly comes from a variety of factor inputs. The first is labor input. The total number of people employed in the agricultural sector increased by 68%, with an average annual growth rate of 2.01%. The sector absorbed a large number of new rural labor force, but from the perspective of agricultural labor productivity, it was a positive growth of 1.66% from 1952 to 1957 and a negative growth of-0.19% from 1957 to 1978, which reflects that the people's commune will dampen the enthusiasm of farmers. Secondly, the total area of cultivated land decreased, but the irrigated area increased significantly. Among them, the average annual growth rate of irrigated area was as high as 6.46% from 1952 to 1957, and maintained an average annual growth rate of 2.41% from 1957 to 1978. In addition, it also includes the input of various factors of agricultural production. According to Angus? Madison calculated that from 1952 to 1957, the growth rate of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) was 0.63% from 1957 to 1978. According to the calculation in the article, from 1952 to 1957, the TFP growth rate of agriculture was 0.08%. In 1957, it was-1.53% in 1978.

Judging from the changes in the Engel coefficient of rural households, according to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the lowest point of this period was 65.7% in 1957, then rose to 67.1% in 1964, 68.5% in 1965, and 67.7% in 1978, higher than in 1957. That is to say, during the period from 1949 to 1978, China's rural population belonged to the "absolute poverty type".

China has a large population in rural areas and a large number of people living in absolute poverty in rural areas, which is the biggest basic national condition. During this period, how to break through or cross the "poverty trap" is the primary task for China, but it was not realized at that time. Moreover, during this period, the different identity household registration system, social security system and public service system between urban and rural areas made the population can not move freely, the labor force could not move freely, and accumulated a large number of agricultural surplus labor force. According to the estimation of labor-cultivated land ratio method, the agricultural surplus labor force has continued to rise since 1961, from more than 100 million people in 1970 to about 110 million people in 1977 [13]. The emergence of a large number of agricultural surplus labor force not only reduced agricultural productivity (lower than the 1957 level), but also caused a great loss of opportunity cost of output. It is estimated that the loss of opportunity cost of output during this period rose from 8.45% of the total GDP in 1961 to 27.95% in 1977, which hindered the transformation of China's agriculture and the road to rural modernization.

Overall the agricultural production conditions changed significantly during this period and the production level has been greatly improved. The irrigated area of the whole country expanded from 300 million mu in 1952 to 450 million mu in 1978. The general flood disasters of the Yangtze River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Haihe River, Pearl River, Liaohe River, Songhua River and other major rivers have been initially brought under control. All kinds of modern agricultural elements, such as chemical fertilizers, agricultural machinery, electricity and so on, have increased significantly. National grain, cotton and other major agricultural products have achieved varying degrees of growth. Although the population is growing too fast, China still relies on its own strength to basically ensure the people's need for food and clothing.

II. Agricultural transformation: the overall transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture.

In 1982, the World Bank issued the World Development report: agriculture and Economic Development. At that time, world agriculture was facing a major challenge, that is, whether agriculture could provide enough food for the growing world population. At that time, China also faced this major challenge.

In April 1979, Vice Premier Li Xiannian pointed out that China's agriculture has been lagging behind for a long time, and although it has developed after the fall of the Gang of four, it is still far from being able to meet the needs of population growth, industrial development and the improvement of people's living standards. Although the total grain output has exceeded the highest level in history, the per capita share of grain is only slightly higher than that in 1957. Farmers in many places have insufficient food rations, and in some places there is a serious shortage of food rations. In 1978, China's imports of agricultural products accounted for 1. 5% of total imports. Solving the problem of feeding one billion people, reasonably arranging the surplus labor force in rural areas and avoiding social unrest have become important issues faced at that time.

Different from previous policy adjustments, Chinese leaders first carried out reforms in the mode of agricultural management with a pragmatic attitude. As summarized in the report of the 12th CPC National Congress: the third Plenary session of the Eleventh Central Committee first grasped the link of agriculture, focused on overcoming the long-standing "left" mistakes in the guiding ideology in the past, and restored and expanded the autonomy of rural communities and teams. we will restore private land, household sideline, collective sideline and market trade, gradually implement various forms of production responsibility system of co-production and remuneration, and at the same time raise the purchase price of grain and other agricultural products. Then the policy of diversified economy was solved so that the face of agriculture changed significantly soon. The second is to affirm the great pioneering work of farmers' guaranteed output to every household. Since 1982, the central government has issued five No. 1 documents for five consecutive years, affirming the rural reform with the household contract responsibility system as the core and relying on the development of township enterprises and the construction of small towns. In 1980, 14% of the production teams implemented the household co-production contract system, which increased to 45% in 1981, further increased to 80% in 1982, and reached 90% in 1984.

In 1992, Jiang Zemin first raised the issue of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" in China. He pointed out: "Agriculture is the foundation of the national economy, rural stability is the foundation of social stability as a whole, and the problem of farmers has always been the fundamental issue of China's revolution, construction, and reform." In the 1990s, the basic ideas for solving the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, in addition to the further development of agriculture, are mainly the development of township enterprises and small towns, which have not fundamentally touched or broken urban and rural barriers and dual economic and social structure.

Since the second half of the 1990s, the proportion of agriculture in GDP has continued to decline, agricultural labor productivity has further expanded relative to non-agricultural industries, the income gap between urban and rural areas has continued to rise, and the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers have become increasingly prominent, which fully reflects that there are many contradictions in China's agricultural development, and China's agriculture is in the stage of rapid transformation.

Since 2004, the CPC Central Committee has issued No. 1 document for ten consecutive years, which has put forward new ideas to solve the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and taken comprehensive measures: gradually change the dual economic structure in urban and rural areas, implement the policy of industry feeding rural areas and cities to support agriculture, establish a rural public finance system, and realize the equalization of public services for urban and rural residents. Improve the rural market and agricultural service system, increase the construction of rural infrastructure, actively develop township enterprises, strive to open up various channels to transfer farmers' urban employment, develop small towns, promote the transfer of rural labor and population from underdeveloped areas to developed areas, from inland to coastal areas, from rural areas to cities, from small towns to large and medium-sized cities Establish, improve and implement the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers, so that migrant workers become real citizens; further speed up the development of modern agriculture and promote agricultural modernization.