Realizing agricultural modernization by service scale

Under the constraint that it is difficult for farmers to expand their operation scale by a large margin, China's agriculture will mainly rely on the expansion of service scale and the improvement of service level in all aspects of agriculture, so as to realize the scale reward of agriculture and improve the competitiveness of agricultural industry.

In recent years, with the major changes in the national economic structure and the acceleration of urbanization, the mode of agricultural development in China is undergoing a major change. The increase of agricultural labor cost leads to the change of agricultural input mode, which is mainly manifested by the decrease of agricultural labor input and the increase of machinery input, and the agricultural productivity changes from improving land productivity to improving labor productivity.

At the same time, the arrangement of agricultural management system is also changing. In some areas, the speed of land transfer is accelerated, the scale of operation tends to expand, and the main body and mode of operation are diversified.

However, on the whole, the expansion of China's agricultural production scale is restricted by the endowment of human and land resources and the mode of population urbanization, and the expansion potential of agricultural land management is limited. Assuming that 260 million migrant workers can be integrated into cities and towns in 2020, and their land can be transferred in a market-oriented way, the per capita arable land in rural areas is less than 5 mu. Moreover, excessive expansion of production scale violates the characteristics of factor endowment of Chinese agriculture, and on the contrary, it will lead to distortion of factor structure and decline of agricultural productivity.

Therefore, I think that relying solely on expanding the scale of agricultural land is not an optional policy tool to promote the transformation of China's agricultural development mode. In the exploration of China's agricultural modernization, Shandong supply and marketing cooperatives are working out a way to realize agricultural modernization with large-scale service as the core.

Agriculture is a typical industry that relies on multiple factors to provide products. It not only relies on traditional inputs such as land and labor, but also relies on modern inputs such as agricultural machinery, pesticides and chemical fertilizers, as well as pre -, mid-and post-natal services in agricultural production. International experience shows that service scale and specialization is an important symbol of agricultural modernization. The proportion of population in agricultural service industry in western developed countries is relatively high. The agricultural population of the United States accounts for only 2% of the national population, while the service industry population serving agriculture accounts for 17% of the national population. On average, a farmer has eight to ten people serving him.

The scale economy effect of agriculture should be realized through the optimization of factor combination, rather than simply increasing the scale of production. Under the constraint that the operation scale of farmers is difficult to expand substantially, Chinese agriculture will mainly rely on the expansion of service scale and the improvement of service level in order to realize the scale reward of agriculture and improve the competitiveness of agricultural industry.

Judging from the practice of various localities in recent years, most of the service links of agricultural production, from the traditional supply of agricultural materials, farming of agricultural machinery, sowing and harvesting of crops, unified control, to the promotion of improved varieties, soil testing and fertilizer distribution, and technical training, as well as the storage, logistics and sales of agricultural products, are suitable for large-scale centralized supply.

First, these links generally have strong homogeneity, a high degree of standardization, easy supervision, and are suitable for large-scale supply; second, some of them, such as seeds and chemical fertilizers, pesticide procurement, pest control and so on, have strong externalities, and centralized service provision can reduce external diseconomy. Third, the assets of some links are inseparable, such as large agricultural machinery, drying equipment, cold chain storage facilities and so on. the expansion of service scale can reduce the diseconomy of investment and idle assets of individual households or decentralized service subjects. it can also enhance the mutual response of all aspects of services. Fourth, these links require a high degree of specialization and organizational ability of the service subject, if the ability in this area can not keep up, the scale reward potential of the service link is also difficult to achieve.

Promoting the scale of service based on land trusteeship is a positive practice for Shandong supply and marketing cooperatives to solve the current problems of "who will farm the land" and "how to farm the land" by focusing on the changes in the mode of agricultural production and organization. It can connect scattered land operators through services, objectively forming the economies of scale of land and machinery operations; it can handle things that cannot be done well by a household, such as farmland consolidation, machinery deep ploughing, agricultural technology popularization, animal and plant disease prevention and control, agricultural product sales, pest "flight prevention" operations, etc., which not only reduces labor intensity, but also improves efficiency and efficiency. For some farmers who are unable to cultivate or lack of labor, it implements "nanny" and "menu" services by means of land trusteeship and substitute ploughing, effectively solving the problems of idle cultivated land and extensive management. At the same time, it has better solved the problem of "the last kilometer" of agricultural science and technology popularization. The service also extends to the fields of post-natal storage, processing, sales and brand cultivation, forming the whole industry chain service before, during and after production, and the comprehensive benefit of agricultural production has been unprecedentedly improved.

Starting from the endowment conditions of various factors of China's agriculture, combined with the existing system, and on the premise of keeping farmers as the basic unit of agricultural production, there is great potential to promote the scale of agricultural services. it should be the main direction and focus of China's agricultural modernization in the future.