The performance of China's agricultural weak position

China's agriculture is in a weak position, which is characterized by its small-scale peasant economy, extensive dispersion, self-sufficiency, no scale and modernization, and being at the end of the industrial chain.

Since 1978, China took the lead in carrying out economic system reform in rural areas, the economic and social conditions of agriculture and rural areas in China have undergone tremendous changes. This change is mainly manifested in the following aspects: (1) The supply of major agricultural products has basically got rid of the shortage. The grain output has increased from 305 million tons in 1978 to more than 500 million tons at present, with a general balance and a slight surplus in good years. (2) In rural areas, the highly centralized and unified management of the people's commune system was abolished, and the management system based on the contracted management of farmers' families and the social system of villagers' autonomy were generally implemented. (3) The circulation system of agricultural products with unified pricing by the government, planned purchase by the state and quantitative sales has been basically abolished. Except grain, other agricultural products have been priced by the market and distributed independently. (4) The rural economic structure has undergone profound changes. Rural secondary and tertiary industries with township enterprises as the main body have developed rapidly. There are 654.38+0.2 billion rural laborers employed in township enterprises, and the total output value of township enterprises has accounted for more than 65% of the total rural social output value. (5) Farmers' income and living standards have improved significantly. The per capita net income of farmers was only 134 yuan in 1978, but it had increased to 22 10 yuan in 199. The vast majority of farmers have got rid of poverty. In the past 50 years, especially since the reform and opening up, due to the great progress in science and technology and the increase in material input, the comprehensive agricultural production capacity has been improved, the long-term shortage of major agricultural products has ended, 22% of the population has been fed with 7% of the world's land, and farmers' life has moved from food and clothing to a well-off life, greatly improving the international status of China's agriculture.

However, there are still many problems in China's agricultural development and grain production, mainly in the following aspects.

(1) Land resources, especially cultivated land resources, are decreasing. China is a country with extremely strong resource constraints, with a high shortage of land, especially cultivated land. At present, China's per capita arable land area is only 1.2 mu, which is only 32% of the world's per capita arable land, 10% of the United States, 28.5% of France, 4.8% of Canada and 3% of Australia. In the next 15 years, the cultivated land in China will continue to decrease. The continuous decrease of cultivated land will push China's grain production into an increasingly narrow space, posing a serious threat to agricultural development.

(2) The quality of cultivated land is degraded. The degradation of cultivated land quality is an important factor affecting the decline of grain output rate. According to the survey, China's soil erosion area is 4.92 million square kilometers, including water erosion area of 65.438+0.78 million square kilometers, and the annual loss of grain is 65.438+0.8 billion kilograms to/kloc-0.33 billion kilograms; 65.438+0.53 million square kilometers of desertified land, 60 million mu of farmland damaged by sand, 2.5 billion kilograms of grain loss, 65.438+0.4 billion mu of saline-alkali land and 65.438+0.5 billion kilograms of grain loss. The data show that 2 1% of cultivated land in China is short of organic matter, 5 1.5% of phosphorus, 24% of potassium, 14% of phosphorus and potassium, and the cultivated land with soil organic matter less than 0.6% is 1 1%. In terms of trace elements, the cultivated land lacking potassium and manganese has accounted for about 70%. In addition, environmental problems brought by the rapid development of industrialization in China, such as air pollution, irrigation water pollution and acid rain, have begun to threaten the growth of grain output.

(3) There is too much surplus labor in agriculture. It is difficult for agriculture to achieve scale operation, which directly affects the improvement of commodity rate and labor productivity of agricultural products.

According to foreign experience, economic development has entered the middle stage of industrialization, the task of transferring surplus labor force in traditional production departments has been basically completed, and the supply of social labor force has begun to appear shortage. However, the situation in our country is completely opposite. In the future, China's economy will enter the middle stage of industrialization, but there will still be a large number of surplus labor in the agricultural sector, and the scale of agricultural operation will continue to shrink instead of expanding. The consequences are as follows: first, the improvement of labor productivity has been seriously suppressed, which has slowed down or even decreased the income growth of agricultural producers, and the enthusiasm of workers engaged in agricultural production has correspondingly decreased; The second is to stop the growth of agricultural products.

(4) The production cost of agricultural products increases, the income decreases, and the comparative advantage of agriculture is weak. According to statistics, from 1978 to 1992, the purchase price of major agricultural products in China rose much faster than that in the international market, with an increase of more than 1 times, with a maximum of 10 times. This makes the gap between the prices of several main agricultural products in the domestic market and the international market smaller and smaller, the income of agriculture drops sharply, and the comparative advantage of agriculture weakens.

(5) the constraints of resources and production technology. China has a large population and a small population, which is an obvious basic national condition. The pattern of small-scale family management has a long-standing objective basis, which greatly limits the application of various technical means and the improvement of agricultural production level. At present, China's agricultural technology is still quite backward in general, and traditional intensive farming technology is still adopted in most areas, with low mechanization level, low labor productivity, inappropriate varieties and quantities of chemical fertilizers, and limited promotion area of excellent varieties.

(6) The shortage of water resources and serious pollution have become the main factors restricting agricultural development. At the same time, the uncoordinated allocation of population and environment has caused great pressure on the environment and become the bottleneck of agricultural development.

Under the heavy pressure of severe problems, China's agriculture is also facing the great challenge of joining WTO. As the forerunner of China's reform, the market-oriented reform of China's agriculture once broke through the shackles of the traditional system 23 years ago, which promoted the rapid development of rural economy, promoted and promoted the all-round development of China's economic system reform, and strongly supported the rapid growth of China's economy. However, since the late 1990s, with the fundamental changes in the relationship between supply and demand of agricultural products, the agricultural development in China is not only restricted by the shortage of resources, but also increasingly influenced by the market. The problem of unsaleable agricultural products and falling prices has become increasingly prominent, and farmers' income has been declining for several years. China's agricultural development is at a difficult turning point. It is against this background that China became a member of the WTO. Joining the WTO not only brings severe challenges to China's agriculture, but also breeds new development opportunities. China should actively participate in the process of agricultural internationalization, accelerate the pace of strategic transformation, system reform and policy adjustment, and comprehensively enhance its competitiveness.

The agricultural issue was once the key area in the negotiation of China's accession to the WTO, which attracted wide attention at home and abroad. During the negotiation of China's accession to the WTO, it promised to implement the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, reduce tariffs on agricultural products, cancel non-tariff measures and open the agricultural products market. It also promised to limit domestic agricultural subsidies, cancel export subsidies and standardize animal and plant health measures.

With the implementation of the commitment to join the WTO, the basic situation facing China's agriculture will be that the market competition of agriculture will shift from domestic competition to domestic and international dual competition, and there will be a new trend in the internationalization of domestic agricultural products market and domestic competition. In the critical period when the pressure of employment and income is increasing and the market-oriented reform is far from complete, China agriculture has to go to the international stage.

However, some of the benefits of agricultural internationalization that China may share are potential and need domestic system and supporting system reform and policy adjustment to be translated into reality; Some of them are long-term and need long-term efforts to truly reflect. It must be fully estimated that in the process of agricultural internationalization, China agriculture will face unprecedented severe challenges.

(A) China agriculture: resource constraints and comparative advantages

A large population and a small population is the basic national condition of China. The per capita arable land in China is only 43% of the world average. In the long run, the contradiction between population increase, cultivated land reduction and shortage of cultivated land resources will always exist. Moreover, China is one of the countries with the most shortage of water resources in the world, and the per capita water resources are only 1/4 of the world average. Such harsh resource conditions have been restricting the development of agriculture in China, which fundamentally puts agriculture in a competitive disadvantage in China.

The research on the comparative advantages of China's agricultural products shows that since the mid-1990s, the comparative advantages of China's agricultural products such as grain, cotton and oilseeds have been declining and basically lost their international competitiveness. For example, from the perspective of resource cost, for every 1997 kg of wheat and corn produced in China, it will lose 0. 15 yuan and 0.1yuan respectively, and the resource allocation is inefficient. Rice, livestock products and horticultural products have comparative advantages (table 1). The research further shows that the rising opportunity cost of domestic resources in agricultural products production since 1990s is the main reason for the decline of comparative advantage. It can be considered that under the current agricultural resource endowment conditions in China, land-intensive products such as wheat, corn and soybean obviously lack comparative advantages and do not have the basic conditions to participate in international commercial competition, while labor-intensive livestock products and horticultural products have comparative advantages, so we should consider improving their competitiveness.

From the perspective of resources, the comparative advantage of China's agricultural products is actually the potential competitiveness of agricultural products, which is not completely equivalent to the market competitiveness of agricultural products. To transform resource advantages and comparative advantages into competitive advantages and market advantages, we need to make arduous efforts, including agricultural product quality, marketing strategy, business experience, transportation and circulation costs, enterprise credit and so on. Resource advantage is a long-term factor that determines the international competitiveness of products, but in the short term, the international competitiveness of agricultural products should be more reflected in market competitive advantage.

(B) the impact on major agricultural products

Then, how will the fulfillment of WTO commitments and the opening of domestic market affect China's agricultural products? From the perspective of international competition, agricultural products can be divided into two categories: one is imported sensitive agricultural products, which are sorted by sensitivity: soybean, vegetable oil, corn, cotton and sugar. The other is to export competitive agricultural products, such as meat, fruits and vegetables, fruits and processed foods. According to the characteristics of China's agricultural resources endowment, fulfilling WTO commitments will have a negative impact on sensitive agricultural products, but it will be beneficial to the export of advantageous agricultural products.

Whether importing sensitive agricultural products or exporting competitive agricultural products, it is not difficult to find that the fulfillment of WTO commitments will make China's agricultural products face enormous international competitive pressures and challenges, and China's agricultural products may face severe impacts in the process of agricultural internationalization. On the one hand, due to the small scale of farmers' operation in China, the production and operation costs of bulk agricultural products are high. Agricultural products such as cereals, oilseeds and cotton no longer have commercial competitive advantages. After China's entry into WTO, the increasing import pressure will have a great impact on the main producing areas and their farmers. On the other hand, labor-intensive agricultural products, such as meat, vegetables, fruits and flowers, have certain comparative advantages and export potential. However, these products have not considered the requirements of the international market for a long time in terms of quality, hygiene and technical standards. Due to the high technical barriers abroad, the quality and hygiene standards of these products are difficult to meet the requirements of foreign markets, and it is difficult for comparative advantages to be transformed into competitive advantages and export realities.

(C) the challenges faced by China's agricultural economic system

Agricultural internationalization also brings severe challenges to China's agricultural economic system and supporting policies;

First of all, the current agricultural management system and institutions are formed to adapt to the past planned economic system and low degree of marketization. The main problems are that the production, processing, circulation and foreign trade management of agricultural products are out of touch with each other, regional blockade, industry division and departmental monopoly, and agricultural development and agricultural products market cannot be effectively and flexibly regulated and managed.

Secondly, the goal of the existing agricultural policy and regulation system is to solve the shortage of agricultural products to a great extent. In terms of price, investment and distribution policies, it focuses on supporting the increase of agricultural products, ignoring the improvement of agricultural product quality and structural optimization; Focus on subsidizing the circulation of agricultural products and the interests of consumers, but not enough support for the interests of producers; In the layout of the national economy, the total amount of support for agriculture is insufficient and the structure is unreasonable. Especially in the context of international competition where agricultural subsidies in developed countries are still high, China still implements negative protection policies such as levying agricultural taxes, specialty taxes and "three suggestions and five unifications" from farmers, which fundamentally puts China's agriculture at a disadvantage in international competition.

Third, the poor circulation system of agricultural products has weakened the market competitiveness of agricultural products. At present, there are some problems in the circulation system of agricultural products in China, such as division of departments, monopoly operation, disorderly market operation, irregular trading behavior and backward marketing methods, especially the imperfect market system, quality standard system and market information system of agricultural products, which seriously restricts the improvement of agricultural products' competitiveness.

Fourthly, the main agricultural operators in China do not have the ability to participate in international agricultural competition. The decentralized management of thousands of small farmers in China, after entering the international stage of agriculture, can not adapt to the increasingly fierce international competition in terms of scale, efficiency and competitiveness. In particular, on the one hand, the level of agricultural industrialization in China is not high, and there are no large grain merchants, pastoralists, gardeners and food processors to participate in international market distribution and competition. On the other hand, the low degree of farmers' organization, the underdeveloped intermediary organizations serving farmers and markets, the lack of business entities participating in market competition, and the backward construction of rural socialized service system make it basically unnecessary for China's agriculture to be organized with those countries with high industrialization, intensification, scale and commercialization.

China's agriculture is not only facing the pressure of foreign agricultural development, but also bearing its own problems and defects. With the establishment and development of market economy in China, the contradiction between agriculture and agricultural economy and the development speed of non-agricultural and national economy has become more and more prominent, and the comparative benefit of agriculture has begun to decline, and the contribution rate to farmers' income has also begun to decline. Therefore, solving the bottleneck of agricultural development, finding new agricultural growth points and realizing three breakthroughs are the development trends of China's agriculture at this stage.

1. It is the only way to develop agriculture in the future to establish a large-scale agricultural management model and achieve a breakthrough in the agricultural management system.

The current agricultural management system is a small-scale management model based on rural land household contract management. This small-scale family management mode of agricultural production did play a positive role in promoting rural economic development, improving agricultural production efficiency and increasing farmers' income in the early stage of reform. However, with the deepening of rural reform, the contradiction between this small-scale agricultural management system and the development of modern agriculture has become more and more prominent. This contradiction is mainly manifested in the small-scale business model of one household, which not only objectively blocks the effective connection of agricultural industrial chain, but also makes agricultural production, sales, processing and transportation in a closed and decentralized production state, thus reducing agricultural production efficiency and inhibiting the potential of agricultural income increase. But also hindered the moderate scale circulation of rural land, so that the current agricultural production tools are still in the original state of human and animal farming, delaying the research and development and popularization of agricultural mechanization; Agricultural production technology still stays in the increase of total agricultural products and the use of chemical fertilizers and high-residue pesticides, which hinders the use and research and development of high-quality and pollution-free production technologies; Therefore, the value of rural land still stays on the single output benefit of original agricultural products, and cannot be converted into capital for trading, which can be used for agricultural expansion and reproduction and get more profits from it. Therefore, it is the only way for future agricultural development to establish a moderate scale agricultural management model.

Moderate scale agricultural management mode is not only conducive to the effective connection of agricultural industrial chain, but also conducive to avoiding the blindness of production and investment, minimizing agricultural costs and improving agricultural production efficiency. This large-scale operation takes the land contracted by farmers as shares, and implements the large-scale operation of basic means of production such as land on the basis of farmers' willingness. This scale operation is different from the past agricultural mutual aid groups, because it does not require every farmer who owns shares to participate in specific agricultural production and operation in person, and the distribution of benefits is different. In the past, agricultural mutual aid groups generally required each member to participate in the agricultural production and operation of the group, and there was no difference in income. The number of shares contributed by each farmer is voluntary rather than compulsory, and agricultural income is distributed according to the number of shares contributed by each farmer.

Of course, this moderate scale operation of agriculture is not to shake and change the basis of the existing rural household contract system and deprive farmers of their rights and interests in rural land contracting, but to solve the contradiction between small production and large market under the condition of small-scale and decentralized household contract management to the maximum extent, and to avoid the blindness of production and the loss of farmers' interests caused by the convergence of product industrial structure caused by family management.

Second, it is the long-term goal of agricultural development in the future to establish a specialized agricultural division of labor mode and achieve a breakthrough in agricultural production mode.

The high cost of agricultural production is an important factor that leads to the slow increase of agricultural efficiency and farmers' income, and a very important reason that affects the high cost of agriculture is the lack of specialized division of labor in agriculture. It should be said that most rural areas have no concept of specialized division of labor. The reality is that a family bears it alone.

This lack of agricultural division of labor business model, on the one hand, increased the market risk of agricultural workers. At present, most farmers are both producers and sellers, so it is difficult for them to have time and energy to cope with the fierce market competition. Moreover, due to the influence of low cultural quality, it is difficult for many farmers to accurately judge the rapidly changing market information. Therefore, in the fierce market competition, most farmers are always in a weak position in the face of fraud and exploitation by unscrupulous businessmen and interest groups. On the other hand, it increases the agricultural risks of agricultural producers. For example, due to the lack of specialized species identification ability, farmers are easy to buy fakes or agricultural products with inconsistent quality and price in the selection and identification of agricultural production materials such as seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, resulting in heavy losses; In terms of agricultural varieties and industrial structure, due to the lack of special market research and information analysis, it is easy to blindly imitate agricultural varieties and industrial structures, leading to the backlog or decay of agricultural products, resulting in an embarrassing situation of increasing production without increasing income or even reducing income. Therefore, it is the long-term goal of future agricultural development to establish a specialized agricultural division of labor management model.

This agricultural specialization model is mainly manifested in three aspects, namely, regional specialization model, departmental specialization model and management specialization model.

The so-called regional specialization model is what people usually call "one ridge and one product", "one village and one product" or "one township and one product". That is, from the macro level, it is necessary to build specialized fields, villages and towns such as planting, aquaculture, aquaculture, fruits, forests, vegetables and flowers; From the micro level, it is necessary to form large-scale and single-variety planting (breeding) places and distribution centers. This not only facilitates production management and technical guidance, but also minimizes the waste of manpower, material resources and financial resources and management mistakes, thus reducing agricultural production costs and increasing agricultural income; It is also convenient for sales, which not only saves the cost of sales links to the maximum extent, but also helps to form scale effect, thus achieving the purpose of improving the market competitiveness of products and making agricultural products invincible in the fierce market competition.

The so-called departmental specialization means that through agricultural division of labor, relatively opposite departments such as agricultural production management, agricultural technology popularization and use, agricultural product sales, transportation, processing and storage, agricultural product supply, agricultural loan financing and agricultural insurance are gradually formed in rural areas, and the traditional rural business model and business philosophy are completely changed. In terms of enterprise management mode, agricultural management will be completed by one production unit (family or family members) in the past, and become a division of labor and cooperation among multiple production units, forming specialized agricultural production enterprises and agricultural industrial workers. This is not only conducive to improving rural labor productivity, reducing agricultural production costs, avoiding agricultural risks, but also conducive to the resettlement and transfer of rural surplus labor.

The so-called job specialization means that all production links are no longer undertaken by a family or a production unit, but each family or a production unit only undertakes one of them. For example, the establishment of specialized grain, cotton and oil seed (seedling) cultivation specialized households. This not only reduces the labor intensity of farmers, but also transfers the rural surplus labor force and improves the production efficiency of agricultural workers. More importantly, through specialized management, we can reduce agricultural risks and blind agricultural investment.

Thirdly, it is the ultimate choice for future agricultural development to establish an enterprise-oriented corporate governance model and achieve a breakthrough in the form of agricultural organization.

At present, the disadvantages of China's agricultural development are not only manifested in the small scale of agricultural operation and the scattered main body of agricultural operation, but also in the low degree of farmers' organization and the imperfect agricultural cooperation system. The formation and establishment of standardized and effective agricultural organization forms and agricultural cooperation system will play a vital role in accelerating agricultural development, improving agricultural economic benefits and promoting the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture.

Although, many rural areas have established some agricultural intermediary organizations, such as agricultural product distributors and large-scale agricultural product processing and transportation professionals. But because these intermediary organizations are interest groups independent of agricultural producers, there is no interest relationship between them. In the absence of standardized management and basic business ethics, when faced with conflicts of interest, agricultural producers are always the first to be hurt by interests. Therefore, it is difficult for agricultural intermediary organizations to protect the interests of agricultural producers. It is also difficult for farmers to get benefits and benefits from it. Therefore, accelerating the establishment of farmers' own agricultural organization forms and agricultural cooperation system is the ultimate choice for China agriculture in the future.

This new type of agricultural organization and agricultural cooperation system is different from the "one big and two big" agricultural organization and agricultural cooperation system in the People's Commune period, which took the production team as the agricultural organization framework and the township purchase and sale service station as the agricultural cooperation system. It is also different from the agricultural intermediary organizations that lack mutual interests at present, but it is a governance model similar to an enterprise legal person. The so-called corporate governance model means that farmers use their own land, capital, production tools, products and labor capital (including intangible capital such as professional skills and intellectual property rights) as shares to form a unified agricultural joint-stock cooperative system-agricultural associations and professional joint-stock cooperative organizations. The shareholders' meeting consists of members, and then the management and legal representative of the association are elected by the shareholders' meeting. Legal persons are responsible to shareholders, who have the right to re-elect management or legal persons.

On the one hand, agricultural associations and professional organizations are responsible for organizing and supplying agricultural means of production for their members, researching, developing and popularizing agricultural production technologies, selling, storing and transporting agricultural products, and organizing and raising agricultural development funds and agricultural risk relief. Members use their own shares as collateral to obtain production materials such as seeds (seedlings), fertilizers and pesticides provided by associations or professional organizations; Get technical support for agricultural income increase and pest control, a series of services such as production, processing, marketing, transportation and storage of agricultural products, and help from agricultural lenders to tide over the disastrous difficulties. Effectively solve the contradiction between farmers' small production and large market, and meet the needs of production units (farmers) in production, technology, capital and sales to the maximum extent. On the other hand, negotiating with the government and social interest groups as shareholder representatives can not only completely cut off the economic ties between farmers and local governments and grass-roots organizations, but also effectively resist the unreasonable apportionment of local governments and relevant departments, as well as the forced deduction and illegal occupation of agricultural policy subsidies, and protect farmers' vested interests from being infringed by illegal interest groups to the greatest extent; It can also effectively prevent market risks, change the fate of always being in a weak position in negotiations to the maximum extent, and minimize the losses of farmers in negotiations by strengthening the status of the main body of negotiations and raising the negotiation price. Of course, it will be very difficult to achieve the breakthrough in the above three aspects, because it requires not only the change of people's ideas, but also the innovation of systems and the guarantee of policies. Therefore, its formation, emergence and development may take a difficult historical process, but in any case, it will eventually become the future development trend of agriculture in China.