15 January 2024, China: The Central Rural Work Conference pointed out that “improve the mechanism of linking farmers with farmers and implement actions to increase farmers’ income.” Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, various regions and departments have actively explored the mechanism of linking farmers with farmers, and vigorously developed new agricultural operations such as leading enterprises and cooperatives. Main entities include nearly 4 million family farms and 2.212 million farmer cooperatives across the country, driving farmers, connecting markets, and leading development; 1.07 million organizations provide social services, serving more than 91 million small farmers; leading enterprises at or above the municipal level drive stable employment more than 14 million people, promoting employment and income increase for farmers. In 2024, how to further improve the mechanism of linking farmers with farmers?
Wang Feng, director of the Rural Industry Development Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that efforts will be made to build a long-term mechanism with “tight connections, stable leadership, and long-lasting benefits”, insisting on combining the strengthening of driving benefits with improving driving capabilities, scientifically and rationally determining the driving methods and Benefit level, actively build a mechanism for linking farmers with stable relationships, close connections, consistent rights and responsibilities, benefit sharing, and controllable risks, so that farmers can share the value-added benefits of the industrial chain, and provide institutional guarantees for promoting comprehensive rural revitalization and achieving common prosperity.
“Family management by small farmers is still the main mode of management of agriculture in my country, and the number of small farmers nationwide accounts for more than 98% of agricultural business entities.” Chen Yangfen, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that it is necessary to encourage reasonable selection of joint ventures based on local conditions. The farming-in-agriculture approach ensures that farmers can make more profits, allowing new agricultural business entities to diversify their crops and do good farming. Support the cultivation and expansion of entities that work with farmers and improve their ability to work with farmers.
Promote the “two hooks” strong incentives. Wang Feng said that support policies should be linked to quantification, and the mechanism of linking agriculture with agriculture should be regarded as a prerequisite for enterprises to enjoy preferential policies, and quantitative conditions and methods should be proposed to determine the degree of preferential policies for enterprises to enjoy. The recognition of leading enterprises is linked to quantification, and the mechanism of linking agriculture with agriculture is used as a prerequisite for the identification of leading enterprises. The weight of indicators is increased to form a guideline of benefiting more from linking with farmers, benefiting from tightening links with farmers, and benefiting from stabilizing farmers.
Support strong alliance in “two directions”. Strengthen the construction of agricultural industrialization consortiums, study and formulate standards for the construction of agricultural industrialization consortiums, guide local areas to focus on leading industries, integrate all links and entities of the entire chain, and build a number of agricultural industrialization consortiums. We will support farmer cooperatives in setting up companies, study and formulate reference standards for farmer cooperatives and rural collective economic organizations to hold shares and participate in setting up companies, and explore a professional manager system.
Cultivate a strong connection between the “two types of subjects”. Cultivate new farmers’ cooperatives, support qualified small farmers to grow into family farms, guide family farms to form farmers’ cooperatives, and build a bridge between farmers and enterprises. Cultivate social service entities, focus on key weak links in production, promote the in-depth integration of advanced production technology and information technology with social services, and improve production efficiency and effectiveness.
