Whether farmers should pay pensions is a very controversial topic, and it is also the top priority that farmers are anxious to achieve. I think pensions should be given to farmers.
Farmers were also contributors to the state
In addition to participating in infrastructure construction and agricultural production labor such as building canals and dams, converting soil and reclaiming land, the most important contribution of peasants was to pay for public grain. This is a special memory for farmers. Public grain is an agricultural tax, which is handed over to the state free of charge according to the standard by substituting grain for tax. At that time, if the public grain was not handed over, it was tax evasion. And the simple peasants choose the best dried rice and wheat to hand over to the country. At that time, production technology was backward and production experience was insufficient, so the grain received was mainly used to feed the city people who were not farmers at that time, as well as those soldiers who guarded the frontiers of the motherland.
Some experts still dispute pensions
In the past, public grain can now be used as social security for farmers, providing pension insurance for farmers and issuing a certain amount of retirement pension. Some experts have explained that the "public food" at that time was a special form of historical development. Farmers pushed wheelbarrows to line up to pay it, which slowly became an agricultural tax, which was collected by the state by sending people to every household.
In that environment, the payment of public grain was a national policy. Every peasant must carry it out, which can also be said to be the responsibility and obligation of the peasant, they say that the payment of public grain does not have the nature of social security now, nor can it be quantified, hundreds of millions of peasants, a large population, the state cannot afford it. The pension that farmers want is impossible and cannot be linked to pensions.
Farmers' pensions have been proposed
At the "two sessions" in 2023, Liu Xiaoliang, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a representative of Henan Province, submitted a motion: proposing the establishment of a "peasant retirement" system.
His reasoning is that although farmers only cultivate the land to grow food, it is also a profession, and farmers solve the problem of feeding and surviving urban people, compared to other industries. The contribution of farmers is not small at all, and it is suggested to establish a "peasant retirement system" to favor the elderly in rural areas, to the childless or poor ability to support their children, and to ensure to the greatest extent that farmers can support the elderly after they have no ability to work.
Against this controversial backdrop, rural pensions are merely a luxury. However, sometimes, the advice of some experts may form a decree, and the farmer can only wait for the day when there is a pension!
I think we farmers should have pensions, because workers rely on farmers to live, farmers do not grow grain, what do workers eat?