East China’s Jiangsu province has recently issued the “Several Measures on Promoting the Organic Connection between small agricultural households and Modern Agriculture Development”. The document is the first of its kind at the provincial-level to support small agricultural households in their development of modern agriculture and the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.
The document lists 11 specific measures, including improving the capacity and conditions, enhancing the organization, enriching the content, and improving the support policies for small agricultural households.
According to the document, Jiangsu will give full play to the role of carriers such as agricultural colleges and township community education centers, and carry out training sessions to ensure that less than 120,000 small agricultural households will be trained each year by 2022.
At the same time, Jiangsu will innovate the sharing model, select and promote practical light equipment and technology suitable for small agricultural households, and provide them with new agricultural varieties, new technologies, new models and other training and technology through the improvement of the science and technology commissioner system.
Taking into consideration of the reality of the province’s agricultural development, Jiangsu will not only support small agricultural households but also focus on the development of "farmers + cooperatives", "farmers + cooperatives + factories" and other modes in a bid to integrate small agricultural households into the modern agricultural industrial system.
In order to stabilize the confidence of small agricultural households and expand the marketing channels of agricultural products, Jiangsu will speed up the development of custody-style, order-based, one-stop agricultural production service industries for small agricultural households so as to make up for the weak links in production and marketing.
China’s agricultural sector is still dominated by the model of farming by small agricultural households. According to the third national agricultural census, smallholders took up more than 98 percent of the entities engaging in agriculture-related work, and they cultivated 70 percent of the arable land nationwide.
The small agricultural households, the biggest part of the country’s agricultural population, are joining a national drive to pursue modernized agriculture, with the help of new technologies and better commercial services.
The change comes as the accelerated pace of urbanization has resulted in a shift in distribution of urban and rural population. China now has 564 million people living in the countryside.
Before China attains its goal to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the toughest task it needs to conquer is rural issue, which constitutes the shortest board blocking the way, analysts say.
China’s basic rural operation system is household-based and the country’s national conditions and rural development status have decided that large-scale agricultural operations are not necessarily the best mode.
Given the backdrop, China, when making policies, has been improving supporting policies for household farmers, bettering services for them and guiding them towards modern agriculture, while encouraging moderate operations in various forms.
（source：ourjiangsu.com）
