The date of the article is August 29th, 2006.
Author's brief introduction Zhu (1947—), male, from xushui county, Hebei Province, is an associate researcher at the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, mainly engaged in the study of the history of modern economic thought in China. Beijing 100836
Based on the survey data of rural economy in Wuxi and Baoding, this paper shows that the miniaturization of agricultural land management is a remarkable feature of agricultural development in China since modern times. People's communes used to manage land on a large scale, but agricultural production efficiency was low due to many disadvantages. After the implementation of the household contract responsibility system, the rural areas of China returned to the small-scale management mode of one household, and the grain output was greatly improved. In recent years, in Wuxi and Baoding areas, with the large-scale transfer of farmers to secondary and tertiary industries and the subcontracting of land to large-scale farmers, village collectives or industrial and commercial enterprises, there have been gratifying phenomena of moderate scale land management and agricultural modernization. However, this high-cost agricultural modernization can only be carried out in a few economically developed areas.
English abstract edition
According to the survey data of rural economy in Wuxi and Baoding, this paper shows that
A prominent feature of land management is that
Small-scale China. Land management in the era of people's commune leadership
Reduce grain production. After the implementation of the contract system, land management is
Based on a family, a large amount of food is produced. In recent years,
Farmers in Wuxian and Baoding have begun to have a second and a third.
Industry, their land has been given to larger families who are good at it.
Grain, the transfer to agricultural modernization, only in a few.
A fast-growing place
Economy.
Keywords: agriculture/family management/moderate scale management
In the 20th century, the scale of agricultural operation in China experienced a very interesting change track: in the first half of the 20th century, the scale of agricultural operation showed a trend of miniaturization, until the most thorough land reform of evenly distributing cultivated land was carried out before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and rural areas in Chinese mainland were unified into individual agriculture. Since then, the scale of agricultural operation has changed from 65438 to 0953 in the opposite direction, that is, to the scale of collective ownership. From 1953 to 1956, it took only four years, which basically changed the family management practiced in China for thousands of years. By 1958, this agricultural production cooperative quickly transformed into a people's commune with "integration of politics and society". However, this kind of collective management only lasted for 25 years from 1956, and returned to the track of family management after 198 1 fully implemented the household contract responsibility system. Judging from the average number of cultivated land occupied by each family, due to the increase of population, its scale is even lower than that before 1956 agricultural cooperation, and this situation has continued to this day. How to treat the historical trend of this kind of planting industry returning to miniaturization after twists and turns, how to move towards moderate scale operation, and what are its conditions? This paper intends to explore this problem by tracking the survey data of farmers in Wuxi and Baoding in recent 70 years.
1. Changes of rural land management scale in Wuxi and Baoding in recent 70 years
(A) per capita arable land change
In the past 70 years, one of the main contradictions in China's agricultural development is the contradiction between man and land, that is, the increase of population and the decrease of cultivated land. See table 1 for this trend.
Source: Based on the data of four rural economic surveys in Wuxi and Baoding.
From the table 1, it can be seen that in the past 70 years, the per capita arable land in Wuxi and Baoding has gradually decreased, which is consistent with the increasingly sharp contradiction between man and land in the whole rural areas of China.
(B) changes in per capita arable land area
Because farmers don't own all the cultivated land, for example, before and at the beginning of liberation, there were cases of land pawning and leasing, and now there are cases of contracting other people's cultivated land to others. Therefore, in fact, what truly reflects the scale of operation is "the area of cultivated land under operation".
Land pawn is divided into pawn and pawn, tenancy is divided into lease and lease, and subcontracting is also divided into assignment and transfer. In the case of private land, the formula for calculating cultivated land area is:
Operating cultivated land area = occupied cultivated land area+leased area-leased area+leased area.
After the household contract responsibility system is implemented in rural areas, the calculation formula is:
Operating cultivated land area = contracted collective cultivated land area+plot area+contracted area-subcontracted area.
Accordingly, the per capita arable land area of farmers surveyed in Wuxi and Baoding is shown in Table 2.
Source: Based on the data of four rural economic surveys in Wuxi and Baoding.
From the figures in Table 2, whether in Wuxi or Baoding, the cultivated land area of farmers is getting smaller and smaller, showing a trend of miniaturization. Obviously, this has a lot to do with the continuous reduction of per capita cultivated land area.
Two, on the issue of moderate scale management of rural land
In the early 1980s, the household contract responsibility system was widely implemented in rural areas of China. On the one hand, it promoted the improvement of agriculture, especially grain output, and created great achievements; On the other hand, it has brought great difficulties to popularize agricultural mechanization and become an obstacle to further improve agricultural labor productivity. Therefore, some theoretical workers began to put forward the problem of land scale management, thinking that farmers should be guided and organized to develop in the direction of land scale management. In real life, some places have begun to implement moderate-scale land management. However, many people think that it is not appropriate to carry out moderate scale land management at this stage, which will cause farmers' panic and short-term behavior in management, cause social instability, and lead to soil fertility destruction and agricultural production reduction.
So, how should we look at this problem? According to the survey, in Wuxi and Baoding, at present, the moderate scale management of land in Wuxi has developed to a very high level; However, the moderate scale development of land in Baoding is very low. This huge difference just illustrates the essence of the problem.
Wuxi county 1982 spring implemented the household contract system. Due to the development of township enterprises in Wuxi County, most farmers have entered township enterprises. Moreover, due to fatigue and lack of money, some farmland has been abandoned or semi-abandoned, while others are difficult to play their special skills because of lack of fields. In this case, from June of 1983 to June of 10, the scale management of responsible farmland cultivated by large farmers (generally referring to the average household 15 mu or more) came into being. By 1989, the county had developed 248 large-scale operations of various forms, with an area of 9263 mu of contracted grain fields. Among them, there are 230 large-scale breeding households with a business area of 8052 mu, accounting for 86.9% of the scale business area.
After several years of practice and summary, large grain growers have increasingly exposed various disadvantages: First, high grain subsidies have placed a heavy economic burden on rural collectives, which will only expand consumption funds; Second, large farmers are not stable enough; Third, large farmers have poor disaster resistance, and it is very limited to build modern agriculture on their own. 1989, Wuxi county party Committee and county government began to guide the development of moderate scale land management in the form of village-run farms. By the end of 1993, the county had a total of land management units 150 1 with an operating area of1.7 million mu, accounting for 18% of the county's contracted grain fields and 54% of the county's contracted responsibility fields. There are 704 village-run farms operating on a large scale, with an operating area of 75,000 mu. The proportion of village-run farms in the land scale operation area increased from 13. 1% in 1989 to 64%, which became the main form of scale operation in the county [1](p70-73). By1September, 1994, the pilot project of moderate scale land management in Wuxi County had passed the inspection, demonstration and acceptance of leaders, experts and scholars organized by the Office of the Rural Reform Experimental Zone of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Since then, the moderate scale management of land in Wuxi county and Wuxi city has been developing continuously. By the end of 1997, the villages in Xishan City (formerly Wuxi County) basically implemented moderate-scale management accounted for more than 30% of the total number of agricultural villages, and the business area accounted for more than 60% of the responsible farmland area. The scale management area of grain and vegetables in Wuxi is 347,000 mu, including vegetable fields 3 1 10,000 mu, and the scale management ratio of commodity grain fields reaches 52% [2] (P34). 1998, Xishan's agricultural scale management mechanism was further improved, and the city's land scale management area reached1430,000 mu [3](P307).
In recent years, there have been new changes in the moderate scale management of land in Wuxi. On the one hand, the form of large farmers still exists, and some village-run farms have become large farmers' operations. On the other hand, Wuxi has begun to build "modern urban agriculture". Since 2003, more than 2 billion yuan of industrial and commercial capital has been invested in Wuxi agriculture, and a number of sightseeing agricultural parks, ecological agricultural parks and science and technology agricultural parks have been built, which has made Wuxi agriculture step to a new level. Judging from the scale of land management, these agricultural parks range from hundreds of acres to thousands or even tens of thousands of acres. The way of land concentration is mostly in the form of "reverse contracting and reverse leasing", that is, taking administrative villages as units, dozens or more pieces of farmers' land are collectively leased to enterprises operating agricultural parks (the lease period is 20 to 30 years or longer), and all the compensation for land transfer fees is paid to farmers. At present, Wuxi has initially formed an efficient tea and fruit industrial cluster in the southern hilly area; Dong Xicheng East Economic Forest Industrial Cluster: Three-edge (along the Yangtze River, along the lake and along the Yangtze River) characteristic aquatic industrial cluster; Suburban fine vegetable industrial cluster; The famous fruit industry cluster around the lake and the demonstration zone of leisure and sightseeing industry around Taihu Lake have laid a preliminary foundation for the construction of modern urban agriculture in Wuxi. The formation of agricultural industrial clusters has effectively promoted the development of regional agriculture. There are 38 characteristic agricultural towns, such as the hometown of fruits and vegetables, the hometown of cows, the hometown of seedlings and the hometown of peaches. 12 1 characteristic breeding bases have cultivated a large number of famous brand agricultural products in provinces and cities. In 2005, the 50 national, provincial and municipal agricultural leading enterprises in the city realized sales income of 654.38+0.69 billion yuan, profits and taxes of 835 million yuan, driving 850,000 farmers and increasing their income. In 2005, the per capita net income of farmers in Wuxi has exceeded 8,000 yuan.
The land management situation in Baoding is very different from that in Wuxi County, and it still maintains the characteristics of small-scale peasant economy. Even if there are large farmers, it is rare. Then, why does the moderate scale management of land with very good effect in Wuxi not appear in Baoding? We think this is because the economic development of Wuxi and Baoding is different.
First, Wuxi has a strong economic strength. 199 1 Wuxi's economic development level ranks seventh among 289 cities above the prefecture level in China. The level of township industrial development in Wuxi City has been ranked first in China since 1980, and ranked first in the State Council Economic Research Center for three consecutive years (19,654,38+0, 1992, 1994). Jiangyin City and Yixing City in Wuxi City are also among the top 100 counties in previous competitions. Strong local economic strength will provide certain material support for the implementation of a policy (such as moderate-scale land management).
Second, in Wuxi's total rural social output value, the proportion of secondary and tertiary industries is very high, and the proportion of agriculture is very low. At the end of 1980s, the composition of rural social output value in Wuxi is shown in Table 3.
As can be seen from Table 3, since the late 1980s, the output value of Wuxi rural secondary and tertiary industries has accounted for 90% of the total rural social output value. Therefore, the secondary and tertiary industries in Wuxi rural areas can absorb a large number of agricultural surplus labor. This is an important condition for Wuxi to carry out moderate scale land management.
See Table 4 for the total rural social output value of Baoding.
Source: Based on the data on page 85 of Baoding Yearbook (199 1).
As can be seen from Table 3 and Table 4, in 1990, the proportion of agriculture in the total rural social output value in Wuxi was only 9.0%, while that in Baoding was as high as 45.8%. The proportion of agriculture in the total social output value of rural areas in Baoding is much higher than that in Wuxi, which shows that the secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas in Baoding are underdeveloped and the surplus agricultural labor force cannot be transferred out. Therefore, more people will live on land.
Third, Wuxi farmers rarely rely on agricultural income. In recent 70 years, the changes of the proportion of farmers' planting income in the total income of farmers' families in Wuxi and Baoding are shown in Table 5 and Table 6.
Source: Based on the data of four rural economic surveys in Wuxi and Baoding.
Source: Based on the data of four rural economic surveys in Wuxi and Baoding.
After 1949, regardless of Wuxi or Baoding, although the proportion of planting income in total household income gradually decreased, the proportion of planting income in Baoding was always higher than that in Wuxi. From 65438 to 0986, the proportion of planting income in Wuxi's total household income was 17.3 1%, and that in Baoding was 36.45%. From 65438 to 0997, Wuxi's planting income accounted for 7.44% of the total household income, and Baoding's was 22.37%. This shows that farmers in Wuxi have rarely relied on farming income.
Township enterprises in Wuxi are extremely developed, and many farmers subcontract their land to others and work in township enterprises themselves. Doing so is not only low labor intensity, but also high income. Why not do it for farmers? This has provided conditions for many farmers to give up land management.
The situation in Baoding is different. There are few township enterprises in Baoding, and it is difficult for farmers to find jobs in township enterprises. Many people go out to work when there is little farm work, but because they have no skills, the income from working is very low. So for many farmers, agricultural income is still very important. Especially for families without migrant workers, the physical form of agricultural income is the food they live on, so cultivated land cannot be transferred out.
The above comparison shows that Wuxi can implement moderate-scale land management on the basis of local economic development level, and farmers have non-agricultural industry income that is more than 10 times as the backing.
The economic development level of rural areas in Baoding is moderate in China, and farmers in this area are still unwilling to give up their land. As you can imagine, land is very important to farmers in areas with low level of development of secondary and tertiary industries and other areas with less income sources.
We don't object to moderate land management in Wuxi. From a long-term perspective, we even think that this is the future development direction of many areas. However, judging from the current level of rural economic development in China, few areas can reach the level of Wuxi's economic development. Therefore, the moderate scale management of land in Wuxi should be regarded as a few special cases in the country. If this practice is popularized now, especially in rural areas where the responsibility farmland has the function of maintaining basic living conditions, it is likely to cause great shock, which is unfavorable to stabilizing farmers and agricultural production. Therefore, it is not appropriate to advocate the development of scale operation in the whole country at present, and the policy of extending the central land contract period for another 30 years should still be implemented to effectively ensure the long-term stability of the land household contract system.
Third, how to realize agricultural mechanization under the "small-scale peasant economy"
There are undoubtedly many problems in small-scale family business in agriculture, the most obvious one is how to develop agricultural mechanization. At the beginning of the household contract responsibility system, many farmers in the north bought donkeys, many farmers in the south added cows, and only some farmers bought small tractors with few supporting agricultural machinery. As for large and medium-sized tractors, it is generally the commune or brigade that sells some tractors to individual farmers at a fixed price when distributing fields to households. Because they are all old machines, the technical condition is not very good. In addition, in order to take good care of the land, bad land, far land and near land for the first time, the land was divided very piecemeal, and the concept of paid service was not formed at that time. Therefore, only a few large and medium-sized tractors have not played their due role for farmers. Except for a few areas with a good foundation of agricultural mechanization, the level of agricultural mechanization in rural areas at that time was many years behind that in the people's commune period.
Without the development of agricultural mechanization, not only farmers work very hard in the busy season, but also it is difficult to improve the labor productivity of agriculture and realize agricultural modernization. To develop mechanization, according to past experience, we should expand the scale of land and engage in moderate scale management of land. However, as mentioned above, for most parts of our country, it is not yet possible to implement land management on a moderate scale. So, how to solve the contradiction between agricultural mechanization and small-scale peasant economy?
Wuxi takes the road of developing moderate scale land management, purchasing agricultural machinery by itself, and establishing village-level socialized service organizations to serve village farms and farmers. Its agricultural mechanization level even exceeds that of some developed countries in some individual aspects, and agriculture is moving towards modernization. Developed township industries in Wuxi began to feed back agriculture, and Wuxi embarked on the road of self-reliance to build agriculture through industry. Take Wuxi County as an example. According to statistics, during the seven years from 1987 to 1993, the county invested 490 million yuan in agricultural construction, including 779 1 10,000 yuan for purchasing agricultural machinery. In the past seven years, the county's agricultural mechanization technology and equipment have been continuously enhanced, with the average annual increase of 150 tractors in Shanghai, and the cumulative possession reached1951; Guilin No.2 combine harvester adds 2 10 sets every year, and the cumulative possession has reached 1702 sets; 60 rice transplanters are added every year, and the cumulative number of rice transplanters has reached 47 1. The total power of agricultural machinery in the county has reached 576,700 kilowatts, with 69 kilowatts per 100 mu of cultivated land. The mechanized farming rate of medium-sized tractors in the county reached 97.9%, the combined harvest rate of "three wheat" reached 9 1%, and the mechanized transplanting area exceeded 45,000 mu. Except rice harvesting, the county has basically realized mechanization and semi-mechanization of farmland, harrowing, irrigation and drainage, plant protection, threshing, transportation, field management and agricultural and sideline products processing [1] (p75-76). It is undoubtedly gratifying that agricultural mechanization has reached such a high level. This is not only the ideal of farmers, but also the direction of rural development.
However, the vast rural areas in China do not have the economic strength like Wuxi, so it is impossible to take the road of agricultural mechanization in Wuxi. Then, in economically underdeveloped rural areas, how should agricultural mechanization go?
We can see that in rural Baoding, the development of agricultural mechanization takes many forms: first, farmers with agricultural machinery serve themselves; Second, large agricultural machinery enterprises and agricultural mechanization organizations provide paid services for local farmers; Third, Baoding agricultural machinery management department organized large agricultural machinery households and agricultural mechanization organizations to participate in cross-regional socialized services such as wheat cross-regional harvesting. The author thinks that these agricultural mechanization service modes in Baoding city may be more suitable for the actual situation in most parts of China.
Four, some enlightenment and policy suggestions
1. China has a vast territory, and its natural conditions, social conditions and economic level vary widely. In promoting agricultural policies, we must not make a one-size-fits-all approach.
2. The contradiction between people in China is extremely acute, which is the basic national condition. Therefore, land issues involving farmers must be extremely cautious, otherwise it will cause fluctuations of farmers and have a great impact on China's agriculture.
3. In promoting China's agricultural modernization, implementing moderate scale land management, and developing farmers' cooperative organizations, we must never make the mistake of rushing for success when promoting agricultural cooperation.
4. We should severely crack down on the use of various opportunities and ways to occupy rural cultivated land for personal gain. Land protection should be listed as the assessment content of leading departments at all levels.
Precautions:
① Rural land includes cultivated land, woodland, grassland, farmland and water conservancy land, aquaculture water surface, etc. The research object of this paper is cultivated land.
② Cultivated land area per capita 1957 includes cultivated land owned by individual farmers and cultivated land added by cooperatives. 1997 the per capita cultivated land area is the collective cultivated land contracted by farmers, part of which has been included in the contracted collective cultivated land, and part of which has not been included.
③ Per capita arable land area 1986 is the per capita arable land area. 1997 The per capita cultivated land area includes some farmers' private plots.
④ The income data of (1) Wuxi1929-1957 is lower than "total income" but higher than "net income"; The income data of 1986 is similar to "net income", and the income data of 1997 is "net income".
(2) The incomes of1929, 1936, 1948 and 1957 have been uniformly converted into RMB price 1958 in the second survey in Baoding, Wuxi. The income of 1986 and 1997 is the current RMB price.
⑤( 1) The income data of Baoding1930-1957 is "total income", the income data of 1986 is similar to "net income", and the income data of 1997 is "net income".
(2) The incomes of 1930, 1936, 1946 and 1957 in the second survey in Baoding, Wuxi have been converted into RMB price of 1957. The income of 1986 and 1997 is the current RMB price.
"References"
[1] Wu. Exploration of Agricultural Modernization in Xishan City [M]. Beijing: China Agricultural Publishing House, 1995.
[2] Research Group of Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. China rural economy [M]. Beijing: China Financial and Economic Publishing House, 1999.
[3] Wuxi Local Records Compilation Committee. Wuxi yearbook (1986— 1990)[M]. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1992.
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This article entered the database in 20071October 27th 165438.
Source: Hebei Academic Journal, No.5, 2006.