Modernizing agriculture

STREAMLINED FORMALITIES: Administrative staffs explain the one-stop convenience services to local farmers in Yiling District, Yichang, Hubei province on March 6, 2014 (CHINA NEWS SERVICE)

Sun Xiaowei, a young villager who owns 90 mu (6 hectares) of field in Wangwudao Village, Liaoyang County of Liaoning province, saw his income soaring last year. "I transferred the management right of my land to a rural cooperative. In return, it pays me 750 yuan ($120) per mu every year," said Sun, who now also serves as a technician in the cooperative, reveling in the fact that his annual income almost doubled in 2014.

Land right transfer and scale management were among the key issues discussed at the 2014 Central Rural Work Conference concluded on December 23, which mapped out the plan for 2015. Centered on the transformation and modernization of agricultural development, the conference also tapped into preservation of local culture and ecological environment and infrastructure construction in rural areas.

"Compared with the rapidly advancing urbanization, industrialization and informatization, China's agricultural modernization is relatively stagnant," said Li Guoxiang, a researcher with the Institute of Rural Development under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Li's argument is echoed by Zheng Fengtian, a professor from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development at the Renmin University of China, who believes agricultural modernization is a critical variable that significantly affects the progress of industrialization and urbanization. "If agricultural modernization goes on smoothly, more labor force will be freed from farm work to push forward urbanization," said Zheng.

Agricultural challenges

Although China's grain output and rural residents' income have realized consecutive growth for 11 years, agriculture still faces mounting risks and structural problems.

According to statistics provided by Li Wei, President of Development Research Center of the State Council, from 2004 to 2012, the land cost, labor cost and service charge of growing rice, wheat and corn increased respectively by 15.7 percent, 10.4 percent and 8.7 percent, higher than the price growth of the three types of staple grain.

"While agricultural production costs keep climbing domestically, the prices for bulk agricultural commodities are sliding down in the international market. As a result, agricultural import is on the increase," said Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu.

For one thing, China faces a lack of agricultural resources, with its per-capita cultivated land and water only equivalent to one third and one fourth of the world average respectively; for another, its agricultural production heavily depends on the pesticide and chemical fertilizer, which has resulted in declining land capacity and food security risks. A large part of China's agricultural production capacity was achieved at the expense of ecological environment, said Li Wei.

Nevertheless, the imbalance of agricultural production also grows more and more evident. Because of irrational regional layout and different resource advantages, north-to-south grain transportation is concurrent with the south-to-north water diversion. While stocks of some types of agricultural products pile up, others have to be imported from the overseas market. In addition, as the consumption of chemical fertilizer keeps increasing and land capacity keeps declining, animal waste has not yet been efficiently applied in farming.

"China's agricultural production is now strained by rising costs and decreasing financial subsidies. It's squeezed by deteriorating environment and resource scarcity. If these problems fail to be solved in days to come, they will undermine the sustainable agricultural development," said Li Wei.

So how can China surmount these obstacles? Zhu Lizhi, a researcher with the Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes the answer lies in agricultural modernization. "By speeding up the transformation of agricultural development model, China's agricultural industry will shake off heavy dependence on resource consumption and the sacrifice of ecological environment, and shift its focus to quality and efficiency," said Zhu.