Four major problems affecting the construction of beautiful villages

[editor's note] the 18th CPC National Congress explained the major historical task of building a new socialist countryside from the perspective of the general layout of "beautiful China" socialist construction, and put forward the grand goal of building a "beautiful countryside." General Secretary Xi Jinping even put forward the poetic requirement of "seeing the mountains, seeing the water, and remembering homesickness." In this issue, the think tank invited several experts from Nanjing Agricultural University to give advice for Jiangsu to build a new socialist countryside, with a view to giving some inspiration.

As of 2013, 43 villages in Jiangsu have been listed in the national pilot list of beautiful villages, but there are 198000 natural villages in the province. How is the development of these rural construction? How far is it from the beautiful countryside? With these problems, we start a special study on four types of issues that affect the construction of beautiful villages in Jiangsu (rural environment, rural land, public service facilities and rural landscape).

First, let's take a look at the rural environment. Since the implementation of the covering pull-net village environmental renovation action plan in 2011, the number of villages up to the environmental renovation standard in Jiangsu Province has reached 167000. Eight cities in southern and central Jiangsu have fully completed the task of village environmental renovation, and the environmental appearance of the villages has been significantly improved. However, the pressure of all kinds of pollution on beautiful rural construction still exists, including agricultural non-point source pollution, rural industrial pollution, rural domestic garbage, rural domestic sewage and so on. Many farmers lack relevant training, and all kinds of pollution are discharged directly without treatment, which pollutes the rural ecological environment and increases the difficulty of rural environmental pollution control. In addition, the problems such as the low enthusiasm of villagers in using biogas, the low rate of environmental protection treatment of straw, the great difference in the comprehensive improvement of provincial village environment, and the slow improvement of rural living environment in backward areas have not been fundamentally solved. In some places, the phenomenon of "reconstruction light management" is prominent, and more "formalities" have been done, coupled with the lack of long-term management funds and weak environmental law enforcement in rural areas, resulting in a resurgence of "dirty, chaotic, and poor".

Let's take a look at the rural land. Jiangsu takes the transformation of land use as an opportunity to speed up the overall development of urban and rural areas and the construction of beautiful villages by promoting projects such as linking the increase and decrease of urban and rural construction land, the construction of ten thousand hectares of fertile land, and the renovation of rural construction land. Investigation and analysis found that the comprehensive improvement of rural land in beautiful rural areas has achieved remarkable results, and the agricultural production conditions and farmland quality have been improved. although some farmers give up farming, the overall advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The circulation of contracted land in rural areas is accelerated, the forms of employment of farmers are diversified, the outsourcing of agricultural services is also showing a trend of diversification and specialization, and the degree of mechanization of agricultural production is accelerated. At the same time, farmers' preference for farmland management or production income is becoming more and more diversified, and there are some differences with the location. For housing land, farmers in beautiful villages have gradually developed multi-purpose value except housing, indicating that most villagers are willing to stay in rural areas, and their recognition of rural living environment and way of life is gradually strengthened. However, there are also some problems in rural land: some farmers are not satisfied with the implementation process and resettlement plan of the rural land comprehensive renovation project, and think that the wishes of farmers are not respected and their participation is not enough. With the improvement of economic conditions, farmers' willingness to give up or withdraw from contracted land appears gradually, but living habits, urban environment, economic income and economic compensation hinder the realization of farmers' smooth withdrawal from homestead.

Then, look at the public service facilities. In the work of the two village committees, sanitary projects such as community environmental renovation projects, unified housing construction planning, rural railings and toilets are listed as top priorities. The popularization rates of rural sanitary toilets, NCMS, social insurance, tap water, compulsory education, road hardening rate and village-level medical and health facilities are relatively high. Specifically, with the gradual popularization of NCMS, most villagers choose the village clinic to seek medical treatment. in addition to the reasons close to home, some villagers think that the medical technology of the village clinic is reliable. Among all kinds of public service facilities, fitness equipment venues, village central squares and community cultural activity rooms are used most frequently. Some villages have also built cultural facilities such as village history museums, memorial halls for specific tasks and historical events. In contrast, rural social security and pension facilities services lag behind, lack of humanistic care. The allocation of educational facilities is good, but not balanced. In general, in the areas with high economic level and better allocation of educational facilities, it is more convenient for villagers' children to enter the garden and go to school. The sources of collective income in rural areas are diversified, and agriculture-related services promote the development of public service facilities and the increase of farmers' income, and promote the construction of beautiful villages. With the renewal of housing and infrastructure construction, the village is evolving from traditional to modern and from closed to open. All kinds of public service facilities are constantly optimized and improved, but there are still some deficiencies, such as how to avoid the increase of economic burden and the loss of local characteristics after improving farmers' living conditions. How to formulate local guidance and operating standards for some new facilities in beautiful villages, such as tourism centers, commercial streets, etc.?

Finally, take a look at the rural landscape. In addition to the neat appearance and good environment of a beautiful village, rural culture and rural landscape should not be omitted. Beauty should be not only beautiful in "shape", but also charming in "heart". Remember that "nostalgia" is to make the plain area more pastoral, the hilly and mountainous areas more mountain village style, and the water network area more water village charm. More than half of the traditional rural characteristic industries in Jiangsu are related to or even closely related to landscape and geomorphological features. for example, the characteristic industry of Linta Village in Yancheng is closely related to the characteristics of pu bag and water village, and the characteristic industry of Yapu Village in Changzhou is closely related to the local geomorphology and water and heat conditions. The survey found that many villages have more than 50-year-old historical buildings, and there is often more than one place, such as fengshui trees, archways, sculptures and so on, indicating that there are differences in landscape and cultural characteristics between villages, which constitute an important element of "nostalgic memory" in beautiful villages, but there is a problem of insufficient excavation in the current situation.

Great achievements have been made in the construction of beautiful villages in Jiangsu, but there is still a lot of distance from the beautiful villages in people's minds. First of all, we should carry out classified guidance on the basis of respecting the wishes of farmers, and the differentiation policy should be both rigid and flexible. We will adhere to the construction of classified garbage treatment and sewage treatment systems, develop ecological circular agriculture, make overall arrangements for agricultural production, farmers' life and rural ecology, change the way of rural energy use and reduce energy consumption, and consolidate our achievements through a long-term mechanism. Combine invigorating homestead assets with saving and intensive use of land to explore a new model of community construction in beautiful villages. Improve the operation and service efficiency of public facilities and raise construction funds by magnifying the leverage effect of financial funds. At the same time, the waste caused by super-scale construction should also be avoided. While strengthening the protection of rural tangible heritage, emphasis is placed on the continuation of traditional spatial forms and the protection of rural intangible cultural heritage.

(Chen Wei is a professor at the School of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, while Wu Wei is an associate professor at the School of Public Administration, Nanjing Agricultural University)