China fosters a new kind of professional farmer(2)

In a recent survey of four villages, Liu Hongmin, chairman of a rural cooperative in Xixia City, east China's Shandong Province, found that 57 percent of village residents surveyed were over age 50, and men in their prime, normally under 45, made up only 20 percent of the farmers there. Less than 15 percent of rural residents earned a living fully dependent on farming, and male farmers accounted for less than 7.5 percent of village laborers in the four villages.

These days, agricultural machinery is widely used in farming, but this is problematic for elderly farmers.

"Farmers in their 60s or even 70s start to have feeble feet and poor technical skills. It is dangerous for them to use such machines," said Liu.

A NEW KIND OF FARMER

China is reviewing its options for addressing the rural labor shortage.

Some large companies based in major cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing, have shown strong interest in starting businesses on farmland leased from farming collectives.

But these profit-oriented companies are not trustworthy in the eyes of rural farmers, said Li Liancheng, the national legislator from Henan.

"These companies seek to maximize profits. Planting crops makes meager profits. People doubt whether they would set their hearts on cultivating farmlands for long," said Li.

"I prefer to see scattered farmlands transferred to the hands of professional farmers for scaled production," said Li. "This also helps to ensure food safety at the very source."

Li's opinions have been echoed by other legislators and political advisors attending the ongoing annual NPC session and that of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the top political advisory body, in Beijing.

"The government should create a more favorable environment to guide farmers to evolve from old-fashioned field-tillers to a 'new type' of professional farmer. It will markedly resolve China's labor shortage problem in rural areas," said Zhang Xiaoshan, a national legislator as well as a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The "new type" of professional farmers, as Zhang put it, is able to meet the demands of modern production and operation in rural areas. They cultivate grains or cash crops on household farms, he explained.

"Unlike traditional farmers, the 'new type' of professional farmers go well beyond tilling farmlands. They are investors, managers and decision-makers," said Zhang.

PILOTS GO AHEAD

Experimental programs have been put in place in some regions to foster the development of the "new type" of professional farmer.

Since March 2012, farmers in Tianchang City, Anhui Province, who grow crops across more than 300 mu (20 hectares) of farmland for over five years are encouraged to register as single-investor, individually-owned companies. The local government helps them overcome operational problems, such as outdated technologies and poor management, so they can compete in the market as professional businesses.

So far, the city has registered 80 such farming companies across 60,000 mu of farmland, nearly 70 percent of the scaled agricultural development in Tianchang.

Over the past two months, Mao Shirong, a 50-year-old farmer-turned farm business owner, has been busy preparing rice seeds and farming facilities for the upcoming spring planting season.

"The central government has encouraged us to be decisive and bold in running household farms. I will work on it heart and soul," said Mao.