Li Sha, a reporter for the 21st Century Business Herald, reported in Beijing that "the countryside should realize modernization instead of pursuing urbanization, and the gap between urban and rural areas should be narrowed, but the differences between urban and rural areas should be highlighted." On October 25, at the press conference on "Opinions on Promoting the Green Development of Urban and Rural Construction" held by the New Office of the State Council, Yang Baojun, chief economist of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, emphasized this when introducing rural construction actions.
Compared with the city, the countryside has its peculiarities. On October 26, at the "2021 Rural Revitalization Summit Forum" with the theme of "Industrial Empowerment and Rural Revitalization", experts expressed their views on topics such as rural revitalization, industrial revitalization, and farmers' income.
Rural revitalization includes agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and rural revitalization is not only industrial revitalization, but also not only rural development. Ren Tiemin, a member of the China Rural Revitalization 50 Forum and former director of the Planning and Finance Department of the National Rural Revitalization Bureau, pointed out that rural revitalization is actually a special group of people and a specific regional development issue.
Industrial prosperity, ecological livability, rural civilization, effective governance and affluent life are the five major tasks of rural revitalization, of which industrial revitalization is the top priority of rural revitalization. Yuan Wenxian, president of the China Association for Poverty Alleviation and Development, pointed out that only when the industry is prosperous can rural revitalization be guaranteed and sustainable development can it be possible.
<h4>Rural revitalization is the main battlefield of modernization</h4>
Ren Tiemin said that rural revitalization is the main battlefield of modernization, and it is also where the difficulties and potential lie. Ren Tiemin pointed out that whether from the perspective of population size or rural geographical area, or providing food security and ecological security, rural revitalization is the "big head" of modernization.
Song Hongyuan, former director of the Rural Economic Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and dean of the Rural Revitalization Research Institute of Huazhong Agricultural University, sorted out the main goals of the three important time nodes of rural revitalization, first, by 2020, important progress has been made in rural revitalization, and the institutional framework and policy system have basically taken shape; second, breakthrough progress will be made in rural revitalization by 2035, and agricultural and rural modernization will be basically realized; third, by 2050, the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, strong agriculture, rural beauty, and peasant prosperity will be fully realized.
Song Hongyuan said that there are four major measures to promote rural revitalization, one is to strengthen the supply of rural revitalization system, that is, to use reform to promote revitalization; second, to strengthen the support of rural revitalization talents; third, to strengthen the guarantee of rural revitalization input, financial priority guarantee, financial focus tilt, and social collective participation; fourth, to strengthen the leadership of the party in rural revitalization.
Dang Guoying, a senior researcher at the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, put forward a policy orientation: In areas of more than 100 square kilometers in a row, if the total population is less than 30,000 people, we must be cautious in comprehensively promoting rural revitalization, and ecological protection must be the focus; the area within 100 square kilometers of continuous, if the population is greater than 30,000 people, is the area where rural revitalization should be vigorously grasped, but the focus is on doing a good job in municipal construction.
<h4>Leave the main body of the industrial chain in the county</h4>
"Practice shows that to lead the revitalization of rural industries, we must build a modern rural industrial system." Yin Chengjie, former executive vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and member of the Rural Revitalization Expert Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said.
Dang Guoying believes that there are eight major categories of rural industries, of which agricultural industries, agricultural industry chain related industries, and side industries related to the rural population and the scale of the agricultural industry chain account for about 80% of the rural industry. "What really makes the scale of rural industries grow is these three industrial categories, which are important enough to support the scale of industries for rural revitalization." But now many industrial links in China's agricultural industry chain are floating in the city, and they have not sunk to the municipal government (that is, the location of farmers and farmers).
Specific to practice, how to do a good job in rural industrial revitalization and make the industry flourish is the focus of rural revitalization and the difficulty of work. Yuan Wenxian believes that industrial revitalization and industrial prosperity are mainly reflected in the revitalization of breeding and breeding, the formation of industrial clusters, the marketization of industrial products, the increase of loan support, and the standardization of agriculture-related services.
Yin Chengjie pointed out that the construction of a modern rural industrial system is an important support for promoting the integration of urban and rural development, promoting county urbanization, especially promoting the integration of urban and rural areas at the county level. Only the integration of urban and rural areas at the county level can truly implement the task of promoting rural revitalization at the grass-roots level.
"To promote the integration of urban and rural areas in the county, the key is to promote industrial development and build a modern rural industrial system." Yin Chengjie said that it is necessary to build a modern rural industrial system, build a whole industrial chain of agriculture, accelerate the development of characteristic industries, and the most important thing is to emphasize that the main body of the industrial chain should be left in the county, and only in this way can we better promote rural development, drive farmers to get rich, and drive rural revitalization. "Therefore, to promote the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, we must establish a modern rural industrial system."
<h4>Work part-time nearby to increase peasants' incomes</h4>
"If everyone runs out, the industry cannot be revitalized." In a sense, retaining people is more important than industry. Ren Tiemin believes that the core problem of rural revitalization is "how to retain people", so we must pay attention to rural education, medical care, digitalization, intelligence, transportation and logistics, and the future industrial pattern.
"Rural revitalization is not just an agricultural issue, non-farm employment is very important, of which local non-farm employment is even more important." Ren Tiemin said.
"Part-time work is an important way to increase farmers' incomes." Dang Guoying believes that it is necessary to attach importance to whether peasants' incomes can be raised and to solve the problem of how to make up for the gap between peasants' incomes.
In the survey, Dang Guoying found that the possibility of small farmers obtaining income in agricultural leisure time is very small, and professional farmers are more likely to obtain income in agricultural leisure time. "The more specialized, large-scale and modern agriculture is, the more farmers need to work part-time." From the experience of some developed countries, the main labor force is part-time near the farm. "The total size of our country's economy is 100 trillion yuan, and the country's demand for nearby part-time business is 64 trillion yuan, which means that if the economic scale below the town reaches the level of 64 trillion yuan, the income level of farmers may be similar to that of urban residents."
Taking the United States as an example, Dang Guoying shared four conditions that determined that the income of American farmers was slightly higher than that of urban residents.
First, farmers must be working part-time in the vicinity. I Chinese the part-time work in the environment is separated from the countryside and is "rural transfer labor", and Dang Guoying's part-time work requires that the farmer's family farm not be too far away from the location of the part-time business.
Second, the nearby part-time industry requires industry. "The total value of the agricultural industry chain is roughly about 10 times the value created by the farm, and if most of the value of the industrial chain sinks to the municipal level, it may still be several times the added value of agriculture." Dang Guoying said.
Third, the organization that carries the economic activities of the agricultural industry chain is preferably a farmers' professional cooperative. Farmers' professional cooperatives can sign long-term part-time contracts with farmers, and farmers, as members of professional cooperatives, work part-time in professional cooperatives and obtain income outside the land agriculture.
Fourth, the rural population is several times larger than the agricultural population. Dang Guoying pointed out that the ratio of the value of the agricultural industry chain to the value of agriculture is related to the proportion of the rural population and the rural agricultural population, and the size of the rural population and the economic scale are not large enough, and there are fewer opportunities for part-time employment.
Dang Guoying believes that although the proportion of non-agricultural income in the income of peasant households in China is getting larger and smaller, compared with the United States, the above four conditions in China are still insufficient.
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