Joe's rural improvement experiment

Whether Joe was engaged in education in the Department of Agriculture and Economics of Jinling University, or later chaired the Agricultural Extension Committee and the Agricultural Loan Department of the Farmers Bank of China, he strongly advocated the experiment of rural social and economic improvement. He emphasized that "in modern times, the rural closed state has been broken, the traffic is developed, agricultural products are commercialized, and farmers' contact with the outside world has increased, so they need to be organized", and pointed out that the significance and role of rural organizations lies in: "The strength of organizations is the sum of many individual strengths ... If everyone puts all their energy into organizations, then the strength of such organizations will be greater than the sum of individual strengths." This is the theoretical basis for Joe to initiate rural organizations.

As early as the early 1930s, Joe organized farmers' associations, set up credit cooperatives and health clinics in the experimental area of agricultural extension in the Agricultural College of Jinling University in wujiang town, Anhui Province, in order to develop the community. Around 1936, there were 6 farmers' associations in Wujiang experimental area with more than 4000 members. Members can enjoy some rights of peasant associations by paying half a yuan membership fee, and they can also get help from extension agencies (such as Jinling University) and improved seed loans from the government.

In the early days of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, when Joe was the head of the agricultural economics department of Jinling University and the director of the technical group of the National Association for the Promotion of Agriculture, he was funded by the association. The Ministry of Agriculture and Economy, together with Wenjiang County Government and local organizations in Sichuan, formed a rural construction association to promote agricultural science and technology to farmers from the aspects of production, economy, society and education, help set up small factories such as papermaking and textile, set up farmers' schools and evening schools, and organize and help credit cooperatives. 1940, registered cooperatives 140, 5 cooperatives with 6697 members. It was welcomed by Wenjiang people, attracted the attention of the society at that time, and was also suspected by local reactionary forces. It was labeled as "engaging in red" and was finally forced to close its position at 1943.

Joe's rural construction experiment is centered on farmers' associations and promotes various rural construction undertakings. In his view, farmers' associations are legal organizations that farmers can enjoy independently, which can integrate political, economic and social construction and simplify rural organizations. After the pilot projects in Wujiang, Anhui and Wenjiang, Sichuan achieved results, the rural farmers' association was the grass-roots organization of county-level agricultural extension institutions in the agricultural extension system he presided over, and it was extended to Bishan, Lingui, Zunyi, Hanzhong, Tianshui, Gansu, Enshi, Hubei and other places with agricultural extension pilot counties, and all of them received certain results. However, under the social system at that time, the inevitable disadvantages of the peasant association organization, as Joe lamented in his monograph, were: "Business is mostly handled by poor soil ... there is no economic self-reliance plan, and it depends entirely on membership fees and government subsidies." The peasant association "cannot be said to be small in quantity, but there are still many places that need to be improved if it is to benefit farmers and be established on a permanent basis."

Joe deeply felt that "everything he has done for many years is often hindered by lack of funds", so he took advantage of the favorable conditions that the government concentrated the agricultural finance business of all banks under the unified management of the Farmers Bank of China, so that "agricultural finance and agricultural technology popularization were closely combined to promote the improvement of agricultural production and change the poverty and backwardness in rural areas". His demand for agricultural finance is that all funds cannot be used for relief, the role of investment is to improve agricultural production conditions, and the purpose of investment should be to develop agricultural production. This reflects his consistent academic thought and agricultural finance theory. After War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression's victory, in Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang and other provinces, the funds of the Farmers Bank of China also did some practical things for farmers. For example, Wujiang Agricultural Extension Experimental Zone in Hexian County, Anhui Province used agricultural loans to establish a mechanical embossing packaging factory; Nanjing Baguazhou Reclamation Area loans to buy tractors and pumps; Jiangsu Province used agricultural loans to set up a "normally closed" grain depot in Jiangning County, build electric irrigation in Danyang County, process agricultural products in Molingguan, and so on. The Agricultural Loan Office also provides financial support for the dying sericulture industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. These businesses were also beneficial to local agricultural production and rural economy.