Farmers' professional cooperative is a mutual-aid economic organization which is based on the contracted operation of farmers, producers and operators of similar agricultural products or providers and users of similar agricultural production and operation services, and is voluntarily United and democratically managed. In recent years, China's farmers' professional cooperatives have developed rapidly and played an increasingly important role in promoting the production and circulation of agricultural products. However, on the whole, the development of farmers' professional cooperatives is still in its infancy, and there are some problems such as small scale of operation, low service level, low standardization and weak driving ability. It is urgent to further improve policies and measures, increase support, and promote the development of farmers' professional cooperatives from quantity expansion to quality improvement.
First, the overall situation of the development of farmers' professional cooperatives in China
Through the investigation of Weifang City, Shouguang City and Changle County in Shandong Province, Zhengzhou City and Xinye County in Henan Province, Chengdu City in Sichuan Province and Shanghai City, it is found that in recent years, especially since the formal implementation of the Farmers' Professional Cooperatives Law in 2007, China's farmers' professional cooperatives have shown a rapid development trend.
(1) The number of cooperatives has increased rapidly, and the overall strength has gradually increased.
By the first half of 20 1 1, there were 446,000 farmers' professional cooperatives registered nationwide, which was three times higher than that in 2007 [① Since the 1990s, 654.38+million farmers' professional cooperative organizations and associations have been established nationwide, but according to the requirements of the Farmers' Professional Cooperative Law, these cooperative organizations and associations need to be re-established. ], about 30 million farmers have actually joined the society, accounting for about 12% of the total number of farmers in China. At the same time, the total investment of farmers' professional cooperatives in China increased from 90 billion yuan in 2007 to 570 billion yuan in the first half of 201/kloc-0, an increase of 5.3 times.
Specifically, the development of farmers' professional cooperatives in Shandong and Henan is in the forefront of the country, and the number of cooperatives in Shandong ranks first in the country. By the end of June, 20 1 1, there were nearly 50,000 professional cooperatives registered in the province, accounting for about 1 1.2% of the whole country, with a total membership of 486,000 and a total investment of 55.27 billion yuan, up 2.8 times and 8.7 times respectively compared with 2008.
(b) Cooperative industries are widely distributed, mainly aquaculture.
The development of farmers' professional cooperatives in China has gradually expanded to planting, breeding, agricultural machinery, plant protection, technical information and other industries, mainly distributed in planting and animal husbandry. Professional cooperatives engaged in farming accounted for 43.3%, and professional cooperatives engaged in animal husbandry accounted for 29.7%, totaling 73%.
It is found that professional cooperatives in many places mainly focus on local advantageous and characteristic agriculture, and most of them are engaged in planting and aquaculture, and there is a phenomenon of cross-industry operation. For example, there are 24,594 professional cooperatives engaged in planting in Shandong Province, accounting for 49.4% of the total; Followed by aquaculture 16669, accounting for 33.5% of the total; Thirdly, it served 14249 items of agricultural production and management related technologies and information, accounting for 28.6% of the total.
(c) Expanding the scope of cooperative services, focusing on product sales and production services.
After the rapid development in recent years, the business service field of farmers' professional cooperatives in China has expanded from the past information service to the fields of agricultural materials supply, agricultural technology extension, processing, warehousing and sales.
According to a survey in Shouguang, Shandong Province, the proportion of cooperatives that rely on products and focus on sales accounts for about 53% of all cooperatives. Cooperatives that mainly provide information services, technical consultation and training and the supply of means of production account for 32%; Cooperatives mainly engaged in processing services account for 12%. In addition, some cooperatives have also explored credit cooperation and mutual insurance.
(4) Cooperative associations are constantly emerging, and the cross-regional and cross-industry development momentum is obvious.
With the expansion of business scale and the intensification of market competition, some cooperatives began to form cross-industry and cross-regional cooperative associations. The establishment of cooperative association makes all cooperatives form an organic whole on the basis of complementary advantages and resource sharing, and improves the level and scope of cooperation.
For example, Shouguang Mengxin Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative Association, founded in July of 20 1 1, is the only cross-regional cooperative association in Shandong Province, with the largest number of cooperatives, the largest number of members and the most complete variety of plants. The United Society has absorbed 3/kloc-0 cooperatives in Jinan, Weifang, Weihai, Binzhou and Liaocheng, with an annual output of 0/50,000 Jin of grapes, 46 million Jin of apples and 60 million Jin of various vegetables. The establishment of cooperatives has become an intermediate bridge to promote the docking between scattered farmers and the vast market.
(E) Cooperatives operate in diversified ways, with "cooperatives+farmers" as the mainstay.
At present, there are four main modes of operation of farmers' professional cooperatives: one is cooperatives plus farmers, which are generally organized spontaneously by farmers and mainly sell products to the market through cooperatives; Second, cooperatives+bases+farmers. Such cooperatives usually have a certain scale of production base. Cooperatives guide farmers' production through production bases and purchase or sell members' products according to standards; Third, leading enterprises+cooperatives+farmers. Such cooperatives are generally initiated by leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization. Enterprises account for the vast majority of the shares of cooperatives, and members participate in shares with labor or products. Most of the legal representatives of cooperatives are concurrently held by the heads of leading enterprises. Cooperatives have built a bridge between leading enterprises and farmers and become the production workshops of enterprises. Fourth, cooperative associations+farmers, composed of different cooperatives engaged in related industries, form a consortium of integrated production and marketing operations, and drive members and farmers in all links.
According to the survey, "cooperative+farmer" is the main form of farmers' professional cooperatives in many places. Take Shandong and Henan as examples. By the first half of 20 1 1, Shandong farmers' professional cooperatives had 470,000 farmers' members, accounting for 96.8% of the total members, while Henan farmers' professional cooperatives had 227,000 farmers' members, accounting for 98.2% of the total members. There are only 157 1 and 350 enterprise members in the two provinces respectively. If 1 average participation of enterprises 1 professional cooperatives, the type of "leading enterprises+cooperatives+farmers" only accounts for 3.2% of the total number of cooperatives in these two provinces and 1. 1%.
Second, the development of farmers' professional cooperatives in China has promoted the production and circulation of agricultural products.
With the gradual development of agricultural industrialization in China, farmers' professional cooperatives have played an important role in promoting the production and circulation of agricultural products.
(A) is conducive to improving the degree of organization of farmers, effectively resist market risks.
In recent years, by actively developing farmers' professional cooperatives and organizing scattered farmers, all localities have, to some extent, overcome the limitations of small family business scale, high production cost and weak market competitiveness, improved the degree of organization of farmers' entry into the market, and enhanced their ability to resist market risks.
According to the survey, in 20 10, more than 23,000 farmers' professional cooperatives in Henan province drove more than 0.9 million non-member farmers/kloc-0, covering 16% of the total number of farmers in the province. Various professional cooperatives organize scattered farmers, changing the weak position of single-family farmers in the market, jointly organizing production and facing the market together, so as to organically combine professional production advantages with sales advantages.
(2) Promoting the adjustment of agricultural structure and promoting the development of modern agriculture.
Cooperatives have promoted the standardization of agricultural production and the branding of agricultural products by infiltrating the popularization of science and technology and variety improvement into all aspects of agricultural production and circulation. By the end of 20 10, 24,000 farmers' professional cooperatives had passed the "three products and one standard" quality certification of agricultural products (pollution-free agricultural products, green food, organic agricultural products and geographical indications of agricultural products), and 26,000 cooperatives had registered trademarks.
It is found that cooperatives in many places actively adopt the model of "leading enterprises+cooperatives+farmers" and "cooperatives+bases+farmers" to encourage members to invest in land. Taking Shandong field trip as an example, Changle Baoshigou Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. built its own base of 800 mu through land transfer in 2009, and implemented closed centralized production management. At the same time, a 300-mu breeding base was established, focusing on the breeding and popularization of improved varieties, which improved the scientific and technological content of agricultural products and the technical competitiveness of agriculture.
In addition, the rapid development of cooperative associations has broken the boundaries between regions and industries, integrated and allocated production factors in a wider scope, promoted the adjustment and optimization of agricultural structure, and become a booster for the development of modern agriculture.
(3) It is beneficial to effectively protect farmers' interests and increase farmers' income.
In recent years, various localities have continuously explored and improved the benefit distribution mechanism of farmers' professional cooperatives. On the one hand, the purchase of member agricultural products at market price or protective price protects the interests of farmers; On the other hand, according to the transaction amount of members, a certain proportion of operating profits will be distributed to promote farmers to increase production and income.
For example, according to the regulations of Shandong Shouguang Liaoyuan Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative, members who provide products to the cooperative will be paid at the highest price traded in the local vegetable market. At the same time, the cooperative management mode of "land share, intensive management, small-scale quota and income dividend" was explored and implemented, and the unified management of farms and the distribution of share interests were implemented. Farmers voluntarily take shares in the land, which ensures that farmers with land transfer can get 65,438+0,000 Jin of wheat in A Mu every year. Dividend according to the surplus at the end of the year, those who have the ability to work can work to earn money, which greatly increases the income of farmers. The average income of members in the course of operation is more than 3,000 yuan.
(four) to improve the quality and safety of agricultural products and market competitiveness.
With the continuous improvement of living standards, consumers pay more and more attention to food safety, which requires that the whole process of agricultural products production should meet quality standards and the products that enter the final consumption link should be traceable. By actively developing farmers' professional cooperatives, all localities have promoted the specialization, standardization and standardization of the whole process of production, processing and sales of agricultural products, and improved the quality and safety level and market competitiveness of agricultural products.
For example, Shanghai Chunming Vegetable Cooperative regularly organizes technicians to go deep into the fields to guide scientific drug use, formulate Enterprise Product Standards and standardized production technical operation specifications for vegetables produced at the base, and implement field file management system and plant protection personnel signature system to control pesticide residues in vegetables to the maximum extent. In addition, the cooperative also actively promotes the information management of vegetable production, establishes a traceability system for vegetable quality and safety, and ensures that every production link from sowing and seedling raising, fertilization and drug use, detection and harvesting, processing and sorting, cold storage and transportation, and customers has rules to follow, so as to become a supplier of agricultural products for the Shanghai World Expo.
(5) It is conducive to promoting the docking of production and marketing and stabilizing the prices of agricultural products.
In recent two years, too many circulation links are considered to be an important driving force for the rapid rise of agricultural product prices. The development of farmers' professional cooperatives is helpful to help scattered farmers make more rational production and management decisions according to their own market information and avoid the ups and downs of agricultural products prices. More importantly, connecting agricultural products produced by one household with supermarkets, enterprises, schools and other main bodies in the form of professional cooperatives and directly entering the sales terminal can greatly reduce circulation links and lower retail prices.
According to the survey, more than 800 cooperatives in Henan Province have established a production and marketing docking relationship with supermarkets or large circulation enterprises through the guidance of the pilot project of "connecting agriculture with supermarkets", and the sales of cooperative agricultural products through chain supermarkets and circulation enterprises exceeded 654.380+0.5 billion yuan.
Three, the main problems in the development of China's farmers' professional cooperatives
The development of farmers' professional cooperatives in China is still in its infancy, and there are some problems such as small scale of operation, low service level, low standardization and weak driving ability.
(1) Cooperatives are generally small in scale and their overall strength is still weak.
The survey found that there are few cooperatives with real scale and strong competitiveness. By the first half of 20 1 1, the average members of farmers' professional cooperatives in Sichuan and Shandong provinces were 15.4 and 9.8 respectively, while the average members of farmers' professional cooperatives in Henan province were only 7.5, only 2.5 more than the quorum. In addition, the average contribution of cooperatives is relatively low. By the end of June, 20 1 1, the average contribution of professional cooperatives in Shandong Province was1.1.00 million yuan, Sichuan Province was 1.24 million yuan, and Shanghai was1. Take Henan Province, where the per capita capital contribution is relatively high, for example, there are 19 19 cooperatives with capital contribution less than119, accounting for 62.2% of the total number of cooperatives, and there are 9765 cooperatives with capital contribution of1-50,000.
The small scale and weak economic strength of cooperatives will lead to a series of problems such as slow capital accumulation, poor ability to cope with market risks, difficulty in forming product scale and improving product quality. All these have become the main obstacles for farmers' professional cooperatives to further industrialized operation and improve scale efficiency.
(2) The service level of cooperatives is low and the market competitiveness is not strong.
Except for some large-scale cooperatives, most cooperatives' services to their members are more at the level of information service, technical consultation and sales service of big sellers, and lack of deep processing that can improve the added value of agricultural products. Taking Shandong Province as an example, as of the first half of 20 1 1, there were only 4,343 farmers' professional cooperatives involved in the processing, transportation and storage of agricultural products, accounting for only 8.7% of the total number of cooperatives. The service coverage is not wide and the level is low, which greatly limits the advantages of cooperative organizations and the market competitiveness of agricultural products.
It is worth noting that professional cooperatives formed spontaneously by farmers generally face great difficulties in adapting to and opening up the market. This kind of cooperatives often take villages as units, with limited total products and market share, relatively weak ability to resist market risks, and a big gap with leading enterprises in information collection, technology introduction, quality inspection and standardization of agricultural products.
(C) cooperatives financing difficulties, lack of high-quality management and technical personnel
According to the survey, the lack of liquidity is a major bottleneck restricting the development of many farmers' professional cooperatives. Although cooperatives are legal persons, due to farmers' low income, limited investment and insufficient self-owned funds, rural credit cooperatives and other financial institutions lack collateral or necessary guarantees when lending to them, or the loan procedures are complicated and the credit line is low. The financing needs of cooperatives can not be effectively met, which greatly affects the development of organizational processing and market development. Although governments at all levels have set up special funds to support cooperatives in recent years, they are limited by financial resources and have little benefit. The only funds can only meet the needs of basic activities such as learning and training, information publicity, etc., and the development potential needs to be strengthened.
At the same time, with the increasingly fierce market competition, the managers of most farmers' professional cooperatives lack professional knowledge in information utilization, marketing and technical services, especially those cooperatives in the early stage of development. What they lack most are leaders, finance, brokers, marketing and management talents, which greatly restricts the development and innovation of rural cooperatives.
(D) The cooperative system is not perfect, and the management and operation need to be standardized.
The investigation found that some farmers' professional cooperatives still have some problems, such as imperfect internal organization, non-implementation of democratic management mechanism and irregular financial system.
First, although some cooperative organizations have set up organizational structures such as general meeting, board of directors and board of supervisors, democratic management, democratic decision-making, supervision and restraint mechanisms have not really been put in place. The promoters of cooperatives often make major decisions independently, and ordinary members basically do not participate in the management of professional cooperatives. Second, the interest linkage mechanism and distribution mechanism between farmers' professional cooperatives and their members need to be improved. For example, some cooperatives have not returned the operating profits obtained by purchasing agricultural products from their members for unified external sales to their members according to the purchase amount; Dividend proportion and transaction volume distribution are not implemented according to law, and the interests of members are not fully guaranteed. Third, the financial system of individual cooperatives is not perfect and standardized, and there are still "three noes" in financial management, such as no special person for accounting, no accounting books and no legal original vouchers.
(e) Support policies for cooperatives need to be improved.
First of all, the funds for poverty alleviation projects, agricultural standardized production, agricultural product certification, pollution-free base construction and "one village, one product" construction are difficult to effectively connect with professional cooperatives.
Secondly, in terms of agricultural industrialization, government support, tax relief and other policies are mainly given to key leading enterprises, but there are still problems in the implementation of preferential policies for cooperatives.
Third, farmers' professional cooperatives lack legal provisions. Most cooperative associations can only be registered as social organizations. Because the identity of the market subject is not clear, cooperative associations are greatly restricted to carry out production and business activities and enjoy preferential policies. At present, although some places have issued policies and regulations to support the development of cooperative joint organizations, the legal status and nature of cooperative associations and the relationship between cooperative associations and grass-roots cooperatives need to be clarified by the state from the legal level.
Fourth, policy recommendations.
(A) to promote the standardized development of all kinds of cooperatives
Clarify the legal status of farmers' professional cooperatives and encourage and support the development of cooperative associations. Improve the democratic management, decision-making and supervision system of cooperatives, and increase the exercise of the power of the board of directors and the board of supervisors. Establish and improve the examination and approval system, financial management system and risk protection system. Standardize and improve the organizational form of "leading enterprises+professional cooperatives+farmers". Guide leading enterprises to establish a voluntary and equal interest mechanism with cooperatives through entrusted production, contract farming, share dividends and surplus return.
(b) Improving financial services to cooperatives.
Innovate the financial service supervision mode of farmers' professional cooperatives, encourage financial institutions to improve financial services, innovate financial products and increase credit input according to the characteristics of farmers' professional cooperatives' capital demand. The key point is to embody the characteristics of convenience and flexibility in terms of guarantee method, credit line and loan interest rate, and to develop credit products suitable for the characteristics of professional cooperatives. At the same time, where conditions permit, mutual funds cooperatives similar to professional cooperatives can be established to guide the joint and cooperation of funds between cooperatives.
(C) Strengthen the cultivation of cooperative professionals
Improve the scientific, technological and cultural quality of cooperative members through expert lectures, demonstration guidance and technical exchanges. Encourage agricultural technicians to work in cooperatives, and strengthen the education and training of cooperative leaders and extension personnel. At the same time, give full play to the role of training bases, organize and carry out training for all kinds of talents in cooperatives, and enhance the pertinence and practicality of training.
Strengthen project support for cooperatives.
In the main producing areas of advantageous agricultural products, the implementation of the project focuses on supporting farmers' professional cooperatives to develop leading industries and develop famous agricultural products with local characteristics; Agricultural machinery purchase subsidies, agricultural standardization, standardized scale pig breeding community and other agricultural financial special funds construction projects are given priority to meet the conditions of farmers' professional cooperatives.
(e) Increase tax relief for cooperatives.
It is suggested that the income from intermediary services such as agricultural technical consultation, agricultural services, agricultural product sales and brand promotion provided by cooperatives for agricultural production should be exempted from business tax, and the value-added tax should be reduced for cooperatives engaged in deep processing of agricultural products. In addition, the preferential prices of water and electricity used by farmers' professional cooperatives in agricultural planting, breeding, primary processing of agricultural products, storage and refrigeration are strictly implemented.
Research Group of "Policy Research on Optimizing the Circulation System of Agricultural Products in China", Institute of Market Economy, the State Council Development Research Center.
Project leader: Ren Xingzhou
(Transferred from China Reform Forum Network)