Let farmers become the main body of agriculture and rural development

Professional cooperatives can provide a good foundation for rural governance to enable farmers to become the main body of agriculture and rural development, and organize to cooperate effectively.

During a recent inspection of Jiucheng rice planting professional cooperative in Fuyuan City, Heilongjiang Province, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that farmers' specialized cooperative is an effective organizational form to increase farmers' income and develop modern agriculture; the northeast region has the conditions to develop large-scale operation, and agricultural cooperatives are the direction of development. It is necessary to sum up and popularize advanced experience and further run the co-operatives well. According to the geographical and historical characteristics of the northeast region, highlighting the directional significance of professional cooperatives is not only a measure in line with local conditions, but also includes an overall strategic vision.

The area of cultivated land per capita in Northeast China is relatively large, and agricultural mechanization farming has better geographical conditions and technical basis. After the founding of New China, as the "eldest son" of the Republic, Northeast China has accumulated more experience in collective organization and collective cooperation, which are the reasons for the better performance of farmers' professional cooperatives in Northeast China.

Of course, there are other development models, including the large-scale operation of agricultural land by industrial and commercial enterprises "capital to the countryside". Many reports and comments have pointed out that at present, it is increasingly common for industrial and commercial capital to go to the countryside to use farmland for non-agricultural operations, which is not conducive to the maintenance of national food security. But the more important problem is that in the mode of "capital going to the countryside" to operate agricultural land, the ties between local farmers have been further reduced, becoming more atomized market-oriented individuals, bringing new challenges to rural governance. This is an important change in the development of agriculture, rural areas and farmers today.

From a national point of view, the influence of the mode of "capital going to the countryside" to operate farmland is increasing, and some of them have borrowed the "shell" of agricultural cooperatives. The change of the countryside itself is an important basis for the formation of this trend. At present, there are nearly 300 million farmers working in cities and towns all the year round, which means that a considerable part of agricultural land needs to enter the land transfer market. Rural land is divided into ownership, contract right and management right, which has its profound realistic foundation to realize the system innovation of collective ownership, farmers' contract right and land management right. Some of the land contractors have left their hometown, and their operations often do not take the form of cooperative organizations of farmers in the land. As a result, the "stage" of capital going to the countryside is expanding day by day, and more and more farmers are marginalized in the process of agricultural production. The two processes are cause and effect and constantly reinforce each other.

At present, the focus of the issue of agriculture, rural areas and farmers can be divided into two different parts: one is whether the system of rural land and its management can be effectively maintained, and the other is whether farmers can still achieve good self-organization in the process of agricultural production. to provide a good foundation for rural governance.

How to develop the basic farmland system is a fundamental problem. When presiding over a forum on rural reform in Xiaogang Village on April 25, General Secretary Xi stressed that the main line of deepening rural reform under the new situation is still to properly handle the relationship between farmers and land. The biggest policy is to adhere to and improve the basic management system in rural areas, adhere to the collective ownership of rural land, adhere to the basic position of household management, and maintain a stable land contract relationship. Recently, Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Rural work leading Group and director of the office, stressed that rural reform should not lose the "soul" of collective ownership of rural land when interpreting this speech. At present, 1/3 of the land in the country has been transferred, and of the 230 million farmers who contract land across the country, 66 million have transferred their land more or less. As there has been a phenomenon of alienating the transfer of land management rights into the change of ownership, this emphasis undoubtedly has its pertinence and practical significance.

After the implementation of ownership, the stability of the right to contract and the release of the right of management, what kind of life and work the farmers will have is a more complex issue. Whether the farmers in the land are organized in the form of cooperatives or the transfer of land management rights to enterprises has a key impact on the internal living conditions in rural areas. If there are effectively functioning professional cooperatives with the participation of most residents in one or more villages, it means that these villages can be "twisted together" to form a more "United" atmosphere, with a foundation for rural governance and more vitality in life and work. If most of the villagers in one or more villages transfer the land management rights to a company, it may not be able to form this situation, and it depends on what role the villagers and the village collective play in it. Not all enterprise operations are "cold". For example, some land transfer trust models, it can integrate the entrustment of ordinary farmers, the intervention of professional cooperatives, the establishment of government trust platform, the operation of service enterprises and so on.

No matter which form of operation that brings the villagers together, it is difficult to avoid a core issue, that is, the role of the village collective and its party organizations in this process. Whether the village collective and its party organizations withdraw from the process of rural economic development or take the initiative to participate in this process as the core organizers of the villagers is the real core issue of the development of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" after the separation of the right to use and the right of management. In this sense, General Secretary Xi stressed the directional significance of specialized agricultural cooperatives, reminding people that efforts should be made to make farmers the main body of agricultural and rural development, and can be organized to carry out effective cooperation.