1 Research Questions
Given that China has to feed over 20% of the world’s population with just 7% of the world’s farmland, agricultural development is strategically important in China. In the global context of frequent extreme weather, volatile swings of grain and energy prices, and financial crisis rippling across the world, China’s future will be decided by how it addresses the challenges of increasing resource and environmental constraints, the rising costs of agricultural production, the migration of rural labor force, environmental contamination, and ecological degradation to promote the transformation of the agricultural growth model1.
In the process of modernization, China’s agricultural development is unique, as no other country has ever exerted such long-term influence on the whole national economy, or prioritized national development strategies in the long term. Domestically, though agriculture accounts for an increasingly lower proportion of GDP and increases in farmers’ income rely more on non-agricultural sectors—multiple functions of agricultural production such as ecological conservation, environmental conditioning, bio-based energy, tourism and recreation, and cultural continuity would be put in the foreground—its strategic roles of helping people with life quality, building up a strong economy, and increasing international competitiveness have not changed.2 Internationally, more than 1.5 billion people live on only $1 per day with more than half of that being spent on food.3 The potential food crisis caused by possible soaring grain prices will not only induce international financial turbulence and social crises in countries and regions but also reduce millions to hunger. In fact, agricultural development mode and food security have become a big picture issue concerning national and even global economic security and social stability. As food, oil, and currency constitute weapons to restrict other countries in the international community, agriculture, with increasingly outstanding strategic roles, has grown into an essential core competence for a country to compete economically.
The past 30 years of reform and opening-up have witnessed China’s entry into the middle stage of industrialization and rapid urbanization, and China finds itself positioned for the optimum development throughout history. China’s Household Responsibility System in rural areas has unprecedentedly released the vigor of agricultural development, which has made China leap historically from an era of food shortage to a new one of subsistence shared by over a billion people and of all-round moderate prosperity. From 2004 to 2006, the agricultural tax was successively rescinded nationwide, a great milestone marked in agricultural history by putting an end to the practice of farmers paying grain tax to government which had persisted for over two thousand years. It also shed light on the issue of agricultural tax—the toughest of the issues related to “agriculture, farmers, and rural areas” that has remain unresolved for thousands of years. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, especially after 2003, agricultural development has been stymied by multiple factors: growing pressure and constraints of resources and environment, complex changes in domestic and foreign economies, and frequent outbreaks of natural disasters. Yet, it is worth mentioning that for the first time China’s grain output increased for 11 consecutive years since 1949, from 861.4 billion Jin in 2003 to 1124.2 billion Jin in 2012, representing an average annual growth of 35 billion Jin. And farmers’ income realized “Nine Successive Fast Increases”, from ¥2662 in 2003 to ¥7917 in 2012, growing at the fastest pace with an average annual growth of over ¥540.4 Taking a review of the history of world agriculture, we will find that among major agricultural giants, only the United States and India achieved five-consecutive-year increases respectively from 1975 to 1979 and from 1966 to 1970. What we have achieved in agricultural development in recent decades, both by historical and contemporary standards, set up a “Chinese benchmark” for the world.5 This is a notable achievement, and it lays a solid foundation for modernization and enables China’s agriculture to begin a new course of development.
We should also be mindful of the unprecedented challenges this mission faces. First, as China’s population is increasing steadily, the existing pattern of agricultural development is faced with the grim challenge of meeting the excessive demand for farm produce. Despite nine consecutive years of good harvest, China is importing more and more food from other countries. Data shows that in 2011 China imported as much as one tenth of total domestic output, including about a third of world soybean exports. The global population is forecast to swell to 9.3 billion, demanding another 680 million tons of grain, while China’s population will increase to 1.5 billion, which is more than the number of people in all developed countries combined. Seven hundred and eighty million tons of grain will be required, as well as 120 million tons of meat.6 Second, as farmland and water resources diminish in quantity and decline in quality, the present developing mode is confronted with tighter constraints on resource-based factors. As an unchanged national condition, the per capita agricultural resources of China are far fewer than the world average. The essential four agricultural resources, forest cover, share of freshwater, territory, and cropland, account for 26%, 33%, 36%, and 40% of the world average, and per capita agricultural resources are declining.7 Third, with globalization, industrialization, and urbanization being advanced, the current development mode is faced with challenges related to essential resources and increasing pressure from domestic and foreign markets. On the one hand, with the accelerating process of China’s industrialization and urbanization, competition is growing fiercer between rural areas and cities, as well as between agriculture and industry for farmland and water resources. On the other hand, low labor productivity severely affects international competitiveness.
In 2008, the yield of cereal, rice, and wheat per unit area reached the standards of developed countries and the yield of maize reached the level of moderately developed countries. During this period, China’s agricultural labor productivity was only about 47% of the world average, about 2% of the average of developed countries, and only 1% of the average of America and Japan, ranking No. 91 in the world8. In the meantime, the “four agricultural giants” of international agricultural companies have gained control over 80% of the world grain trade and 70% of rapeseed trade through strengthening their deployment of the whole industry chain in raw materials, logistics, trade, processing, and sales.9 As international companies are strengthening monopolization of farm products and materials, China is facing increasingly unfavorable competition with developed countries. Fourth, as resource-based agricultural development causes ecological problems such as resource destruction, environmental pollution, water loss, soil erosion, and desertification, the existing pattern faces challenges from ecological degradation and safety concerns surrounding farm products. Research shows that China is responsible for 30% of the world’s consumption of chemical fertilizers in recent years. The pesticide and fertilizer per unit area rates are 1.4 to 2 times higher than those of developed countries and the rates of utilization of pesticide and fertilizer are less than half, only 30% and 40% respectively. Moreover, every year 40% (about 50 tons) of vestigial agricultural films are left in the soil, and the effective utilization rate of water in agriculture throughout the country is only 40% at present, far below developed countries at 70–80%.10
Plastic pollution has become a major problem in rural areas. Many green mountains and bodies of water in the past have suffered desertification and pollution. While some rivers frequently flood, other rivers have simply dried up. All of these issues have a direct link with the destruction of the rural eco-environment. Therefore, the current agricultural development model contributes toward deterioration in the agricultural development environment and declining agricultural product quality. It also further endangers the health of citizens as well as the continued development of the national economy.
Every era has its own issues, and it is believed that, once they are solved, human society will advance. Global warming and resource exhaustion have brought severe challenges to the survival and development of human beings. The construction of a resource-conserving and eco-friendly society (“resource and ecologically sound society”) has become a central topic in world economic and social development. It is an issue that every country in the world strives to solve, and represents the common ideals and shared mission that no country can disregard. The fifth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee explicitly proposed to construct “a resource-conserving, environmentally friendly society”, and first integrated it into one of the strategic tasks for China’s national economic and social development in the medium- and long-term plans.11 It was elevated to an unprecedented height in The Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. It was also put into practice and promoted worldwide as models by the State Council. Several cities were chosen by the State Council, such as Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan city cluster and Wuhan city cluster, to be the reform pilot area for building a “resource and ecologically sound society” by the 17th National Congress of the CPC. In the meantime, The Rise of the Central Area Planning, approved by the State Council in 2009, listed six cities in China’s central region, including Hubei and Hunan Provinces, as the most important grain production bases in the country and as critical areas for national food security. The 5th Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee has pointed out that China will take “resource and ecologically sound society” as an important support for accelerating the transformation of the economic development mode, further shedding light on its requirements, approaches, and countermeasures.12 Experience over the past few years in Hunan Province proves that a “resource and ecologically sound society” is an innovative and inevitable choice for the government to accelerate the transformation of the development mode and the process of China’s economic and social society in an all-round, coordinated, and sustainable way. In 2011, China issued The Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, which serves as a guide for accelerating the development mode of economic transformation and a milestone from demonstration promotion to an all-round advance in constructing a “resource and ecologically sound society”.
The 17th CPC National Congress proposed that “the transformation of economic development mode” should be regarded as a significant strategic deployment, and also explicitly stated that the transformation of the agricultural development mode should be considered an important task in transforming the economic development mode, as well as an area of importance and challenge for national economic transformation. The Third Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee noted that “…we should focus on accelerating the transformation of agricultural growth mode and building up an agricultural produce system featuring resource-conserving and environmentally friendliness which should be basically accomplished by 2020”.13
The report of the 18th CPC National Congress further stated, “We must give high priority to making ecological progress and incorporate it into all aspects and the whole process of advancing economic, political, cultural, and social progress, work hard to build a beautiful country, and achieve lasting and sustainable development of China”.14 Moreover, this was the first time the construction of ecological civilization was treated as a priority. The report also explicitly stated that the ultimate goal of the construction of a “resource and ecologically sound society” and realizing green, low-carbon, and recycling development is to build a beautiful China. As the ecological function of agriculture is more and more stressed, accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development mode and realizing sustainable agricultural development will inevitably become an important part of the construction of ecological civilization.15 The spirit, principles, and policies of the CPC Central Committee defined the contemporary content of agricultural development in the new era of China, and pointed out the strategic direction for the transformation of the mode of agricultural development.
1.1 A New Approach to the Transformation of Agricultural Development in a Populous Country
Under the guidance of building a “resource and ecologically sound society”, China’s agricultural development must not only ensure the effective supply of farm products and realize the major strategy of national food security, it must at the same time ensure the accomplishment of multiple strategic goals to ensure the sustainable development of the national economy, for example food quality and safety, eco-environmental protection, resource conservation, and farmers’ income increases. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze property development, functional improvement, and the enhancement of effects of agriculture in the broader context of international and domestic development, and to evaluate the roles of resource endowment, material foundation, talent support, system guarantee, and the contribution of sci-tech as it plays out in China’s agricultural development. This is the initial condition for discussing the transformation of the agricultural mode by using historic vision and global perspective: to analyze a series of interwoven issues such as industrialization, urbanization, internationalization, and a populous nation; to analyze the transformation of the agricultural development mode concerning the transformation of other agricultural development mode; to examine farmers’ income and employment in terms of internal factors; to embrace the transformation of agricultural development in a “resource and ecologically sound society” as a strategy to enhance global competitiveness; and to strengthen the important function of agriculture as the root of national survival and economic growth in a populous country. This is undoubtedly an important historical issue with far-reaching influence in China’s agricultural development history.
1.2 A New Direction of Chinese Agricultural Modernization Under Environmental Constraints
As a dynamic process, agricultural modernization refers to a change in agricultural development since the eighteenth century. As the goals and tasks of different historical periods are different, patterns and development mode also vary. People usually regard western “petrified agriculture” in history as the direction of agricultural modernization. From the current perspective, the development mode of western agriculture derivi...