Since the strategy of rural revitalization was proposed and implemented, the state has further increased public finance and resource investment. At the same time, various policy documents are also emphasizing the main nature of farmers, in the grass-roots work and research, but also often hear a variety of voices that need farmers to participate, because farmers are both beneficiaries and builders of rural revitalization, rural industrial development, village overall environment improvement, cultural inheritance and innovation need farmers to invest a certain amount of human, material and financial resources.
However, in practice, the dilemma of "the government does it, the people see" is not uncommon, and how to mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers to participate in rural revitalization has also become one of the problems that plague many front-line workers at present. Why is it so hard for farmers to get involved? The author believes that this is mainly due to the fact that the current peasants and the village have formed a multi-faceted substantive separation, resulting in the weakening or even disappearance of the connection between the villagers and the village collective, which affects the initiative of participation.
Rural suburbs of Beijing. Beijing News reporter Wang Wei photographed
After leaving the soil and entering the city, the peasants gradually left the countryside
The increasing urbanization rate has led to the separation of farmers' living space from villages. After the reform and opening up, the urbanization rate increased at the same time as economic growth, according to the seventh national census data, the population living in the countryside is about 510 million, accounting for only 36.11%. Compared with the sixth national census in 2010, the urban population increased by 236 million people, the proportion of urban population increased by 14.21 percentage points, the rural population decreased by 160 million people, and China's urbanization rate increased from less than 20% in the early days of reform and opening up to 63.89% at the end of 2020.
Another data shows that in 2020, the urbanization rate of China's household registration population is 45.4%, and the urbanization rate of the household registration population lags significantly behind the urbanization rate of the permanent population, which means that a considerable number of farmers with rural hukou are employed and urban residents in the city, especially with the outward migration of public services, such as education, medical care, etc., many farmers with rural hukou are substantially separated from the countryside. These peasants basically have relatively stable economic resources in cities and towns, and have established a new circle of life, which has led to the hollowing out of the countryside, and the gap between the registered population in the countryside and the actual permanent population is very large.
Rural population does not live in the countryside, in the face of some special needs for their participation in the affairs, often more from the personal interests to consider, think that "beneficial in, not profitable", in order to ensure that they win the initiative in the distribution of income, for the village public interest, many times hold "do not want to participate" and "have nothing to do with me" attitude.
At the same time, non-agricultural employment has also led to changes in the source of farmers' income, weakening the relationship between farmers' livelihoods and village development. In recent years, the pace of urbanization has been accelerating, and the trend of non-agricultural employment of farmers leaving the land has become more and more prominent. According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in 2020, the total number of migrant workers in China is 286 million, of which about 170 million are migrant workers, of which only 0.4% are engaged in the primary industry, of which 48.1% are engaged in the secondary industry, 51.5% are engaged in the tertiary industry, although the process of non-agricultural transformation from the land has brought about the growth of farmers' income on the one hand, but it has also caused the separation of farmers' income from villages, farmers' livelihoods are no longer based on villages, and the contribution of village development to farmers' livelihoods is weakening. As a result, farmers' attention to the development of the village has been greatly reduced.
Hollowing out of villages The participation of the left-behind population is not high
Some people leave the land and enter the city, so what about the people who stay? The survey shows that there is still a gap between the participation ability of left-behind villagers and the needs of rural revitalization. Farmers living in villages still have good enthusiasm for participating in rural construction, but due to insufficient human capital, low participation efficiency, and low participation efficiency are inseparable from the long-term shortage of rural public services, and good education, medical care, pension and other service resources are concentrated in cities. In rural areas, the scarcity of basic education resources and the overall level of education quality are not high, which to a large extent causes the relatively low level of education of farmers. When we investigated in many villages, we found that whenever asked what ideas they had for village industry or village development, many villagers said that they had no ideas and did not know what to do, and some villagers said that the government would do whatever they wanted, or what village cadres or township cadres thought.
In addition, the villagers who remain in the village have a relatively weak ability to resist risks, and there are more concerns about those industries whose development benefits are not very clear and have certain risks. The author carried out a rural revitalization experiment in a village, relying on the advantages of the village location, around the development of rural tourism carried out a series of village construction, in line with the goal of industrial value-added benefits to stay in the village, I hope that the villagers can develop some catering and other service businesses, but the villagers' response is not positive, more people are worried that the unstable flow of customers in the village leads to the failure of investment in catering.
At present, many local financial institutions are also innovating financial products to benefit farmers, simplifying loan procedures, and granting credit to some villages, but the enthusiasm of farmers to apply for loans to banks to develop industries is still very low, and the number of loan applications is extremely limited, which shows that there are still many concerns left behind in participating in rural revitalization. At the same time, the lack of technical services further weakens the enthusiasm and self-confidence of farmers to participate in rural governance. In the past, farmers can get benefits through simple manual labor, in the rapid development of science and technology today, farmers because technology can not meet the requirements of industrial development, and emerging industries are excluded, in some rural development of collective industries, a large number of foreign technical personnel, only hire a small number of local farmers, engaged in the simplest handling, boxing and other basic labor, which also affect the enthusiasm of farmers to participate in rural revitalization.
Lack of identity rights It is difficult for new villagers to participate in village development
With the advancement of rural revitalization, some places have begun to try to recruit "new villagers", these new villagers through various ways to live in the village, become new people in the village, they have a good enthusiasm for participating in rural construction actions, but their identity qualifications are limited, often can only talk about contributions, it is difficult to get returns.
In the process of reforming the rural collective property rights system, the rural areas have completed the identification of the members of collective economic organizations, which marks the determination of the membership rights of collective economic organizations, and the membership rights of collective economic organizations actually cover the right to obtain land contract management, the right to use residential land, the right to request the distribution of collective rights and interests, the right to manage and supervise collective property, and the right to vote and be elected within collective economic organizations. The above rights are very important for the production and life of villagers, but some villagers, especially capable "new villagers", have become "outsiders" in the rural areas after the reform of the collective property rights system.
Many of them live in the village for a long time, through labor or capital investment for the village collective development to make a certain contribution, in many areas it is the new villagers to join the original village collective economy began to rejuvenate, but because the hukou is not in the village collective, in the collective economic membership identification, because it does not meet the most basic identification criteria, so the group is not included in the scope of recognition, because there is no collective economic organization membership, it is difficult to participate in the development of the village wholeheartedly.
Rural revitalization requires the participation of farmers, the need to give play to the enthusiasm of farmers, all localities are also exploring a series of policy practices, such as the point system, red and black lists, etc., to encourage farmers to participate, but also initial results, but if we can not change the current farmers to participate in the development of villages deep-seated structural problems, it is difficult to really give play to the initiative and enthusiasm of villagers.
Author: Tang Lixia Deputy Secretary-General of the National Institute of Rural Revitalization, China Agricultural University / Professor of the College of Humanities and Development
Author: Ding Yue PhD candidate, Department of Development Management, College of Humanities and Development, China Agricultural University
Written by Tang Lixia Ding Yue
Edited by Tang Zheng Proofreader Zhao Lin