Agricultural commercialization and functional orientation of Family Farm

In 2013, the first document of the Central Committee proposed to encourage and support the transfer of contracted land to large professional households, family farms and farmers' cooperatives, in which the new term "family farm" has aroused concern. Then, at the third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, the Central Committee more clearly put forward five new types of agricultural operators, including professional households, family farms, farmers' cooperatives and agricultural enterprises. Since then, family farms have sprung up all over the country. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, by the end of 2012, there were 877000 family farms in line with the statistical standards, with an operating area of 176 million mu of arable land, with an average operating scale of 200.2 mu, of which 861000 family farms were engaged in the farming industry, accounting for 98.2% of the total number of family farms [1].

However, from a practical point of view, there has been confusion in the process of developing family farms in some places, and some so-called family farms only have the name of family farms but not family farms, or even come from the excessive transformation of some existing cooperatives and agricultural enterprises. Not only that, in theory, there is a lack of systematic argumentation and explanation on why family farms should be developed and the significance of family farms to the development and transformation of China's agriculture at present, as well as the essential differences between family farms and other new agricultural operators. As a new thing, the way of development and cultivation of family farm needs to be explored in practice, but the basic understanding and functional orientation of family farm must first be clear. In view of the deficiency in the current understanding and research of family farm, this paper relocates the family under the background of agricultural transformation, demonstrates its unique function in detail, and puts forward some suggestions on the development of family farm.

I. Family farms under the background of agricultural commercialization

1. The concept of family farm

As a new main body of agricultural management, the research on family farm is still in a relatively primary stage, and the related research generally focuses on the definition and characteristics of family farm. It is also lack of understanding and functional orientation from the perspective of China's agricultural development and social transformation. It is generally believed that the family farm is a new type of agricultural operator with family members as the main labor force, engaged in agricultural large-scale, intensive and commercial production and operation, and agricultural income as the main source of household income (Gao Fan, Zhang Wenjing, 2013). By definition, the family farm has at least four basic characteristics: first, it takes the family as the business unit; second, the labor force is dominated by family members and does not employ or rarely employ labor outside family members; third, the farmland operated has long-term stability and reaches a certain scale; fourth, agricultural operating income is the total and main source of household income (Guo Xibao, 2013; Liu Wenyong, Zhang Yue, 2014) Gao Xiang, Liu Tongshan, Kong Xiangzhi, 2013). This paper agrees with the relevant research on the concept definition and characteristic description of family farm, but this paper hopes to answer why China's agricultural policy should encourage and develop this new type of operator.

2. Agricultural commercialization and family farms

Since the reform and opening up, with the improvement and acceleration of urbanization in China, a large number of agricultural population has been transferred to cities, and the proportion of non-agricultural population has increased greatly. Moreover, with the economic development and the improvement of people's living standards, the whole society not only changes in the consumption structure of agricultural by-products, but also puts forward higher requirements for the improvement of the quality of agricultural and sideline products. There is no doubt that today's Chinese agriculture is at the confluence of historical changes. In this context, the author believes that the emergence of family farms is to comply with the trend of social and agricultural transformation, and further promote the commercialization of Chinese agriculture.

First, family farms should promote the transformation of agricultural operators from small farmers to "middle farmers" or "big farmers", so as to solve the problem of "concurrently" agriculture in China. Whether the purpose of agricultural production is to solve the problems of food and survival of their families, or to face the market, is completely different for different business entities. For small farmers, especially under the constraints of the basic national conditions of large population and little land, their land farming is first of all to meet the consumption needs of their families [2] before the surplus grain will be handed over to the market and the country. In China, since the distribution of land in rural areas, due to the restoration of the production pattern of small farmers, the state can only collect taxes and fees from farmers and make grain ordering tasks to meet the consumption needs of the urban population for commercial grain. In contrast, for middle farmers or large farmers, their land area is larger, and agricultural production is mainly market-oriented. Therefore, from the perspective of national food security, it is a major issue related to the stability of grain production that there are a number of producers who are engaged in agricultural production and whose production is mainly market-oriented. As family farms are mainly composed of middle and large farmers, promoting family farms is to promote the development of middle and large farmers.

Not only that, since the new century, with the emergence and expansion of non-agricultural employment opportunities of rural labor force, the problem of low efficiency of agricultural output value has gradually emerged. In many places, if there are local non-farm employment opportunities, they are more willing to put their main labour force into the secondary and tertiary industries while planting agriculture at the same time. For small farmers, they no longer attach importance to the significance of land output to household income, as long as they can protect the basic consumption needs of families, they will not take the effort to improve the output of land and the market competitiveness of agricultural products. The problem of concurrent agriculture is becoming more and more serious. Different from family farms with moderate scale, because agricultural income is the main source of household income, improving agricultural output and commercialization has a direct role and significance for increasing income, they are willing to study market demand, willing to improve labor efficiency and land output rate. At the same time, because they have been engaged in agricultural production for many years, they also have rich experience in agricultural production and the level of scientific and technological management. Therefore, with the emergence of family farms, a new group of professional farmers will appear, thus promoting the industrial development of agriculture and the degree of commercialization of agricultural products.

Second, family farms should improve the quality of agricultural by-products to meet the needs of society to improve the consumption level of agricultural and sideline products. In addition to the part-time problem of agriculture, in the vast inland rural areas, there is a universal agricultural farming model based on intergenerational division of labor. In the vast central and western rural areas where there are not a large number of non-agricultural employment opportunities, many farmers go out to work, and the contracted land can only be cultivated by the elderly who stay at home. On the one hand, the children rely on going out to work to get the main income of the family, on the other hand, the left-behind elderly people at home make full use of their idle labor to invest in agricultural production, relying on the limited output of land to reduce household consumption expenditure. Because the elderly are lack of alternative choice of employment, under the premise that they still have a certain labor force, they can devote themselves to agricultural production and ensure the stability of agricultural output. Therefore, for small peasant families, this division of labor and combination model can maximize family welfare.

However, this sociological "half-farming and half-farming" agricultural model is facing more and more challenges. On the one hand, agriculture for the elderly is still faced with the problem of who will farm in the future. If the degree of intensification and commercialization of agriculture cannot be improved, agriculture itself will be unattractive. On the other hand, more importantly, agriculture for the elderly can maximize the output of land, but because planting is mainly for their own household consumption, it lacks the ability and motivation to invest in science and technology in agriculture and enhance the competitiveness of products in the market. Especially in the production of cash crops, modern society is no longer satisfied with the sufficient supply of quantity, but also produces new requirements such as taste improvement, healthy consumption, and more green planting methods. These new requirements can not be realized by traditional small farmers who have the advantage of "intensive cultivation". They must rely on the input of agricultural science and technology and modern agricultural management. Therefore, from the perspective of the development trend of agriculture, Chinese agriculture needs a group of agricultural operators who can actively cater to the market demand and arrange their own production according to the market, and family farms come into being under this background.

In short, under the background of social transformation and agricultural commercialization, the traditional agriculture with small-scale peasant economy as the main body needs to be reformed, and the emergence of family farms is to solve the problem of "who will farm and how to cultivate well" in the link of agricultural planting.

II. Comparison of the functions of different new types of agricultural operators.

The problem is that before the concept of family farm was put forward by the central government, new agricultural operators such as agricultural enterprises, cooperatives and large grain growers already existed in our country. As an important force to promote agricultural commercialization, compared with these subjects, what are the characteristics and unique advantages of family farms? Only in comparison can we understand the significance of the existence and development of family farms.

1. Family farm VS agribusiness

For a long time, as a modern organizational form, agricultural enterprises have been placed on the important hope of developing agriculture and driving farmers to become rich. From 2000 to 2006, the Ministry of Agriculture and other central ministries have successively identified more than 580 national key leading enterprises, and each province (autonomous region, municipality directly under the Central Government) has also identified more than 4800 provincial key leading enterprises (Ministry of Agriculture Rural Economic Research Center, 2008). Due to the internal organization and management system of the enterprise, and the general operating area is huge, it is impossible for the enterprise legal person to engage in agricultural labor, so it is necessary to solve the problem of agricultural production management by employing workers in production. It is precisely because of the separation of capital and labor that Marxism found that the capitalization of agriculture will lead to two class relations between agricultural capitalists and agricultural proletaries. the development of commodity economy will eventually lead to the formation of the bourgeoisie with the means of production and the opposite proletariat, that is, the formation of capitalist relations of production (Marx, 2004).

However, because it does not have the characteristics of standardization, procedure and easy supervision of industrial labor, under the mode of relying on hired workers for agricultural production, how to measure and evaluate the labor of laborers? and then mobilize the production enthusiasm of workers is a problem that perplexes the management of agricultural production. On the one hand, in space, the workplace of agricultural labor is highly scattered, and managers are unable to supervise and manage workers on the spot; on the other hand, in terms of time, there is a long cycle from agricultural labor to the maturity of agricultural products. managers are unable to evaluate the labor of agricultural workers according to the quality of the final products. This means that under the employment relationship, the time and space characteristics of agricultural production make it difficult for managers to establish an effective reward and punishment mechanism. For agricultural front-line workers, under the condition of the failure of the mechanism to measure and evaluate their own labor, they will inevitably face the awkward situation of "doing more and doing less". In this relationship model, they do not take the initiative to deal with various occasional problems in agricultural production because of the biological characteristics of agriculture, and the intensive cultivation of agricultural production has become impossible.

In addition, under the current social and institutional conditions in China, agricultural capital must bear two costs when it goes to the countryside to engage in agricultural production. First of all, due to the reality of land contracting to households in China, agricultural enterprises must pay the corresponding land transfer costs for farmers. Secondly, due to the increase of non-agricultural employment caused by economic development, the price of rural labor has been formed, agricultural enterprises have to pay labor costs to hire agricultural workers. At present, the cost of rural labor is rising day by day, which has become an important factor restricting the development of agricultural enterprises. It is for these reasons that once they enter the planting field, agricultural enterprises, especially those planting land on a large scale, are generally faced with a difficult situation such as decline in per unit area and operating losses (Guo Liang, 2011; Sun Xinhua, 2012). The disadvantages and disadvantages of enterprises entering the front line of agricultural planting have been shown in practice.