Among the problems and challenges facing China's agriculture, the most prominent is what

The countryside will persist for a long time in the process of China's urbanization. Agriculture is indispensable in China as an ancient industry, but the industrialization of agricultural production has become a trend, and apart from retaining ornamental idyllic agricultural production, China's agriculture is bound to develop in the direction of intensification. As an essential and important factor in agricultural production, farmers are faced with the problem of transformation. Some farmers are trained to become assembly line operators in industrialized production, while others become gardeners in ornamental agriculture.

Currently, the issue of agriculture in China has become a hot issue for academic discussion. Reducing the number of farmers seems to have become the fundamental solution to China's agricultural problems. There are even scholars who believe that China's three agricultural problems, boiled down to one point, is how to reduce China's farmers. Such academic **** knowledge is not only not conducive to the development of China's agriculture, but may lead China's agriculture into the wrong zone. Therefore, we must get to the root of the problem when discussing Chinese agriculture.

In the past, when we discussed the three rural issues, we tended to juxtapose agriculture, rural areas and farmers. In contemporary civilized society, the emergence of the countryside is a fact. Rural is a concept that corresponds to urban. In a large country like ours, complete urbanization is not possible. In contrast to the organizational structure and development characteristics of the city, the countryside has its own form of organization and mode of development. If we transform the countryside by urbanization, we are bound to make a left-leaning mistake. The countryside, like the city, is a carrier of modern civilization, only that because of their different functions, they should display different characteristics. There is no way to eliminate the countryside, nor can it be eliminated. China's development model should be: long-term coexistence of urban and rural areas, and benign interaction between urban and rural areas.

The root of the three rural issues lies in agriculture. Farmers are simply employees employed in the ancient industry of agriculture. If we look at the agricultural industry from this perspective, many of our ideas are unrealistic. First of all, we do not recognize the comparative disadvantages of agriculture and try to solve the problem of farmers' welfare by developing agriculture. At a time of globalization, China's agriculture lacks a basic competitive advantage. Under the constant onslaught of foreign agricultural products, China's agricultural production will only contract, not expand. This is because China's agriculture is not well endowed with natural resources, its organizational structure is not rational, and the technology accumulated at a later stage is very insufficient, so it is impossible for China's agriculture to have an advantage over foreign agribusinesses that produce on a large scale. Currently, the vast majority of China's farmers are still in a state of natural economy, and farming to feed people is still the norm in rural China. A small portion of the grain that enters the market is simply exchanged for farmers' daily necessities. The degree of agricultural commoditization in China is not high. From this perspective, hoping to develop Chinese agriculture by reducing the number of farmers is undoubtedly like trying to fish in troubled waters. Even if China's farmers are reduced, other resource endowments will remain unchanged, and China's agriculture will still be at a disadvantage. However, it is absolutely not feasible to give up agriculture. Even in developed countries, agriculture is still a national priority industry. This is because, in the evolution of human civilization, we have not yet found a complete alternative to agricultural products, and agriculture is still the most basic industry for people to be free from hunger and fear. No matter how much the country needs to pay, the viability of agriculture must be ensured. From this perspective, China's agriculture is not a question of whether it should develop or not, but whether it should be stabilized or not. In the process of modernization, China's agriculture should play a stable role. Only when agriculture is stable will there be hope for China's modernization. Stabilized agriculture is not necessarily an expanding agriculture; on the contrary, stabilized agriculture should be an appropriately contracting agriculture. Only when China's agriculture is accurately positioned, China's agricultural policy and agricultural system design will be scientific.

Secondly, we must admit that in the process of modernization, agriculture has become China's largest resource supplier. Employed people in agriculture not only provide a steady stream of raw materials for industrialized production, but also provide talents for the modernization of cities. This "bleeding" phenomenon of agriculture is common in the modernization and development of all countries. It is precisely because of this "externality" in agricultural development that countries must subsidize agriculture in a distributive or redistributive manner. In the field of agriculture, market regulation and government regulation always go hand in hand. If we do not recognize the "bleeding" phenomenon of agriculture and its role in modernization and development, and unilaterally put the modernization of agriculture on a par with other modernizations, we are bound to make mistakes in decision-making. In fact, the modernization of agriculture has its own meaning, in addition to the modernization of farming technology, resource allocation and management level of modernization is the pursuit of the goal of China's agricultural modernization. On a barren piece of land, it is difficult to realize the value-addedness of wealth even if it costs more. In some countries, industrialized workshop production has replaced field farming, and traditional agriculture has transitioned from production to ornamental, and agriculture has become a museum industry.

Thirdly, we must admit that in the process of modernization, there is no end to the expansion of cities. Whether in developing or developed countries, cities are expanding step by step, while the countryside is shrinking step by step. This contrast between urban and rural areas fully reflects the awkward role played by agriculture in modernization. It is not that agriculture is unimportant, but because the industry is so old that it can no longer adapt to the requirements of modernization, countries have to give special priority to the development of agriculture in various forms, so as to prevent the train of modernization from starting properly because of the backwardness of agriculture. Frankly speaking, in the economic structure of each country, agriculture is like a stumbling old man who has to be pushed into the carriage on a priority basis, otherwise others cannot board the train in time. The expansion of cities is a sign of a young and vibrant nation. Agricultural development needs to be nourished by urbanization. In today's China, wherever rural development is good, it is not because of agricultural progress, but because of the many township industries in these areas. It is the development of industrialization that has led to the development of urbanization, which has provided a stable market for some of the surrounding agriculture. This mode of agricultural development, which depended on the development of industry and urbanization, became the almost universal mode of agriculture in the south of the Yangtze River. As industry and urbanization continue to expand, agriculture will lose its basic resource, land. In some areas, the demise of agriculture is not a myth but a reality.

Fourth, we must recognize that in the face of these inevitable trends in agricultural development, our institutional design lacks the spirit of innovation. In the utilization of agricultural land resources, we stick to the land contract system, which firmly ties land resources and farmers together and prevents the free movement of land resources and farmers. In fact, the development of agriculture depends on the free movement of land resources and farmers. The land contract system, as an institutional design for resolving the relationship between the State and the peasants, and between the collective and the peasants, has positive significance in a certain historical period, but in the process of modernization, the land contract system can only be an expedient measure in the transitional stage. The land contract system neither meets the requirements of modernized mass production nor restricts the peasants' demand for independent development. In the process of modernization, we are too attached to the existing reform achievements, and do not use innovative vision to look at the development of China's agricultural emergence of new modes of resource combination and farmers' spontaneous organization and management structure.

Fifthly, in terms of the provision of institutions, we have unilaterally regarded the autonomy attempts of the farmers' "sea election" as the operation of modern political democracy, without seeing the compatibility problems arising from different institutions in rural China. Both the autonomy of the villagers' committees in rural China and the corporate system of modern enterprises play extremely contradictory roles in agricultural production. Politically, villagers' autonomy is conducive to villagers becoming masters of their own house. However, the collective ownership of land determines that the villagers' self-governing organization has in turn become the institution that holds the villagers' most basic means of production. Under the control of the villagers' committees, the rights of the peasants have been narrowed rather than expanded. The villagers' committees have become a big mountain weighing on the heads of Chinese peasants. It is a very strange phenomenon that the peasants' own organization not only fails to protect the interests of the peasants, but, on the contrary, has become an institution that oppresses the peasants. China's villagers' self-governing organizations have been deformed. It is against this background that some scholars have raised the issue of land privatization, arguing that the peasants should be allowed to really control the most basic means of production. However, instead of alleviating the real conflicts in China's rural areas, the privatization of land will create new obstacles to the improvement of China's agriculture in the future. Therefore, the design of China's agricultural system also needs to emancipate the mind.

In the author's view, Chinese agriculture is not a question of whether it should be developed or not, but a question of whether it should be preserved or not. As an industry that lacks comparative advantage, Chinese agriculture will need strong state support for quite a long time to come. As employed in agriculture, farmers should enjoy the benefits provided by the State. However, such welfare arrangements do not lie in the development of agriculture, but in the protection of farmers. Except for a part of China's agriculture that is transformed by the introduction of industrialized production lines, the rest of it should be developed into ornamental agriculture. The Chinese peasant is a Chinese citizen living in the Chinese countryside with a natural economy. A strict distinction must be made between Chinese agriculture and Chinese farmers. The modernization of Chinese agriculture is a selective industrialization. And as farmers engaged in agricultural production are not peasants in the present sense of the word, but farmers who have been trained in agricultural techniques. China's contemporary peasants are in fact a vulnerable group in need of state support, and they should not and cannot be the lifeblood of agriculture. We must make a strict distinction between agricultural policy, farmers' policy and rural policy, and prevent rough lines in the design of the system from leading to damage to the interests of China's farmers.

As an industry, Chinese agriculture must make a transition in two directions, one towards industrialization and the path of intensive production, and the other towards ornamental idyllic agriculture and the path of leisure-oriented agriculture. As farmers in China, we are also faced with two choices, one is to engage in the production of modernized agricultural products through technical training, and the other is to rest on our laurels and establish a self-sufficient rural natural economy. The problem we have now is that we don't want to change the natural economic model of self-sufficiency in contemporary rural China, but at the same time we want to integrate this economic form into the modernized big market to bring more wealth to the farmers. This is a whimsical path of development. Chinese peasants are either adapting to modernized mass production or are content with the idyllic nature of the natural economy. Adapting the farming methods of the natural economy to the needs of the modernized market economy is undoubtedly the biggest problem that exists in contemporary China. Chinese agriculture will either undergo a complete industrialization or become a museum-like industry. It is an unrealistic fantasy for our contemporary agricultural experts to position the production of agriculture on a traditional model, but to try to use the traditional mode of farming to realize the development of agriculture and the increase of farmers' income. China's agricultural development must get rid of the hold of traditional thinking and establish a new view of agricultural development.

In fact, China's farmers have already steered agricultural production onto the right path through quasi-intensive business models such as plastic greenhouse production, only that our economists lack keen observation skills and remain immersed in traditional thinking.

We have had too much haste in China's agricultural problems. The state's policy of increasing farmers' incomes is correct. But if there is no distinction between farmers engaged in agricultural production, and other citizens living in the countryside, and between farmers and agricultural issues, then there is bound to be a problem with the design of our system. There will be fewer farmers in China as a result of the modernization of Chinese agriculture, but there will be more other citizens living in the countryside as the overall welfare of Chinese citizens increases. If farmers are viewed indiscriminately alongside other citizens living in the countryside, then not only will the problem of increased agricultural productivity not be solved, it will also affect the problem of improving the welfare of real farmers. There are already fewer and fewer peasants in China who are actually engaged in agricultural production, and more and more other citizens whom the peasants need to support. The increased burden of this population supported by farmers is what has caused many farmers to leave their homes in search of higher returns. In solving China's agricultural problems, it is important to see the dilemmas facing Chinese agriculture and to choose the right direction of development. At the same time, it is important to distinguish between raising farmers' incomes and expanding agricultural production. Prevent ostensibly systematic thinking from confusing the distinction between agriculture, the countryside and farmers.

Simply put, the existence of the countryside is a relative concept. In the process of China's urbanization, the countryside will exist for a long time. Agriculture as an ancient industry is indispensable in China, but the industrialization of agricultural production has become a trend, in addition to the retention of ornamental idyllic agricultural production, China's agriculture is bound to develop in the direction of intensification. Farmers, as an essential element of agricultural production, are faced with the problem of transformation, with some farmers trained to become assembly line operators in industrialized production, and others to become gardeners in ornamental agriculture. Chinese agriculture must be re-engineered and the traditional view of agriculture must be changed.