Revitalize the countryside and enrich the people. This is a must answer question for all regions to promote the modernization of Chinese agriculture and rural areas.
Recently, the reporter went to Wuling Mountain Area in Chongqing to visit Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, a key county for rural revitalization in China, and was deeply attracted by the reform practice of turning "I want to revitalize" into "I want to revitalize".
In recent years, Youyang County has focused on a word of "community", with farmers as the main body, policy integration and innovation as the support, and social organizations and market empowerment as the help, to revitalize rural resources, promote industrial integration, maximize farmers' entrepreneurship and wealth creation, and forge a road of "their own development, their own resources earn their own".
Co construction: farmers play the leading role and call out "I want to revitalize"
Standing on the cliff and looking at Hejiayan Village, the terraces spread out in layers, surrounded by the ancient village of wooden houses and green tiles. Li Mengna, the owner of the coffee shop who roamed in the old houses of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, said, "I can't even think about it. In less than two years, the once dilapidated village has become a 'clocking ground'."
Hejiayan is a microcosm of Youyang County's exploration of rural construction for common prosperity. This "hometown of tribute rice" with ten thousand mu terraces was rarely visited in the past, and most villagers went out to work.
Change begins in 2021. The whole county carries out the pilot reform of the construction of "jointly rich villages" here, and sets up rural cooperatives with farmers as the main body. Villagers become members by quantifying the discount of idle houses and land. By integrating village resources, farmers' funds and other factors, they invest in the transformation of villages and the development of integrated agriculture and tourism industries. Members participate in decision-making, construction, operation and benefit distribution to realize the benefits in the whole process.
Facing the new opportunities of reform and development, more than 60 villagers of Hejiayan Village spontaneously wrote a letter of determination, promising to transform from "I want to revitalize" to "I want to revitalize". He Fei, who quit his job in Zhejiang and returned home, was elected as the director of Hejiayan Rural Tourism Joint Stock Cooperative, mainly responsible for infrastructure construction, logistics maintenance and other work. "The times have given us good opportunities and the government has issued good policies, so we must create a good life with both hands."
Private houses become guest rooms, granaries become academies, and old sheds become cafes... Under the "trading" of the co rich rural cooperatives, Hejiayan Rong used various funds of more than 8.5 million yuan to build capital pools to activate the "sleeping" villages. In 2023, the Huatian Terrace where He Jiayan is located was rated as a national 4A scenic spot, receiving more than 80000 tourists and earning more than 4 million yuan annually.
"In the past few years, we focused on rural revitalization, and some places put more emphasis on capital to the countryside than on agriculture, which has not achieved satisfactory results." Qi Meiwen, secretary of Youyang County Party Committee, said frankly that the biggest feature of the construction of a prosperous countryside in Youyang is to let farmers play the "leading role", and focus on cultivating new rural businesses and models with farmers as the main body.
In the past two years, Youyang County has explored the path of differentiated layout of scenic villages, industrial villages and ecological villages, built 15 pilot villages for common prosperity, and created more than 20 types of common prosperity businesses, including high-end homestay, cultural and creative industries, rural tourism, and pastoral complexes. In 2023, the per capita disposable income of 15 demonstration villages will be 18925 yuan, up 17.1% year on year.
Co creation: social forces "empower" and work together to "link agriculture with agriculture"
The key to rural revitalization lies in industry, and high-quality industrial development should not only stimulate farmers' enthusiasm for participation, but also integrate various resources to empower farmers.
What is the role of county and township governments? Qi Meiwen said that its orientation is to adhere to "do what the government should do well". On the one hand, it should earnestly provide basic public services, and do a good job in planning policy support, public facilities construction, industrial base support and other aspects. The county has cultivated six major leading products of "tea rice, oil honey, artemisia annua enzyme"; On the other hand, build the main body, build a platform, dredge channels, and strive to effectively graft the villagers' vision and various elements, so as to achieve the division of labor, cooperation and symbiotic development of multiple main bodies.
When you enter the intelligent greenhouse of Chongqing Wulingshan Camellia oleifera Research Institute, you can see the temperature, humidity, soil and seedling conditions on the big screen. The intelligent irrigation system also sprays irrigation at the right time with the change of parameters. Chen Boyu, the head of the research institute, said that according to the layout of the county, the research institute is mainly responsible for seed selection, seedling breeding and promotion. At present, the county is planting 420000 mu of camellia oleifera, with more than 200000 farmers participating, and the average income per mu is about 900 yuan. Today, 48% of the income of village collective economic organizations in the county comes from the oil tea industry.
How can social organizations empower rural revitalization? In recent years, Youyang County has cooperated with the China National Trade Promotion Association to build a digital economic base of "one village, one product", and successfully created a regional public brand of "Youyang 800" agricultural products. In just over a year, it has helped develop 33 categories and 133 types of high-quality agricultural products in high mountains, with sales of products reaching 1 billion yuan. Liu Bo, a tea merchant in Youyang, said with emotion, "My tea garden sales have increased by at least a quarter on the cooperation platform of China Council for the Promotion of People's Trade!"
In this regard, Lan Jun, president of China Council for the Promotion of Civil Trade, said that the government has the advantages of organizing farmers and policy support, but lacks brand building and marketing capabilities; The enterprise has the advantages of production and operation and market expansion, but it lacks care for the long-term interests of rural areas and farmers. The advantage of social organizations is that they can gather resources such as science and technology, brands, e-commerce and financial services, build an interest connection platform between government, enterprises and farmers, and effectively solve the problem of "the government can't do what it wants to do, and social capital can't do what it wants to do".
Youyang County also introduced platform enterprise teams such as Tencent to work with local farmers to open up new space for rural economy.
In 2022, Hejiayan Gongfu Rural Cooperative, together with Tencent's "Cloud Rice" team, launched a smart adoption project. Through the "Hejia Yanyun Rice" small program, consumers can designate a paddy field and adopt it at the price of 9.9 yuan/square meter. "Less than 30 hours after the launch, 38000 square meters of rice fields in the first phase were ordered out." Lu Dong, the village secretary, said that projects such as "cloud chicken raising" would be carried out in the future to attract more tourists to "punch and swipe cards".
Thanks to the empowerment of social organizations, platform enterprises and expert teams, in recent years, Weishi Village, Tianguan Township has improved the development scale of crape myrtle industry and built a complex integrating crape myrtle sightseeing, leisure and vacation, and interactive entertainment; Relying on ecological resources such as ancient tree communities, Jinsinan Village of Lianggui Township has developed an agricultural cultural tourism project with the theme of ecological culture and agricultural civilization.
The introduction is not the purpose, but the promotion of the revitalization of local talents is the fundamental. Youyang County focuses on cultivating local talents from project cooperation and foreign exchanges, and on selecting professional talents from returned youth. Gao Sheng, deputy county head, said that by participating in the rural management talent training plan launched by China Agricultural University and Tencent, more than 40 rural professional managers have been cultivated in the past three years. "The rural homestay, catering and cultural and creative industries in the county have improved year by year, and are inseparable from the cultivated 'rural CEO' team".
Common prosperity: reconstruct the development mode and "maximize the interests of farmers"
The industrial development model of "company+farmer" has made contributions to poverty alleviation in the past, but the survey in Youyang County found that due to the large gap between the game ability and benefit distribution of both sides, "capital crowding out of small farmers" or "farmers not abiding by contracts" often occur, leading to some cooperation projects from beginning to end.
How to solve this problem? Qi Meiwen believes that the key for Youyang County to promote the construction of "jointly rich villages" is to change the government investment model of "enterprises making money, farmers keeping the minimum, and costs not being recovered" into a rolling development model of "farmers making money, and costs being recovered to the collective", so that the villages can achieve "their own development and their own resources earning".
To realize this transformation, farmers should be regarded as the largest beneficiaries. First of all, make good use of the policy of benefiting farmers, put the government into market-oriented operation, and innovate the operation mode of collective assets.
To "take farmers as the largest beneficiaries", it is necessary to innovate the distribution method according to the village conditions, significantly increase the proportion of farmers in the primary distribution, and make secondary distribution according to the income of cooperatives, so that the villagers have both wage income and business income.
Take Hejiayan Village Co prosperity Rural Cooperative as an example, they distribute according to the "1136" model, that is, 10% of the operating income is used for the year-end dividend of 104 participating farmers; 10% of the net profit is used for village collective economic public welfare undertakings, 30% is used for salary commission of professional managers, and 60% is used for rolling capital to expand the common wealth business.
"This distribution model not only provides long-term financial security for cultivating rural industries and strengthening the collective economy, but also makes the villagers become the biggest beneficiaries." According to Lu Dong, the village branch of He Jiayan, the village's collective economic income will reach 6.99 million yuan in 2023, and the net profit will reach 2.87 million yuan, far more than 450000 yuan last year. Among them, the village collective year-end dividend reached 804000 yuan.
Xinglong Village, Tonggu Town explored the "4222" distribution model. Ran Sichao, the village branch secretary, said that based on the annual income of the cooperatives, the members of the village were distributed according to the proportion of 40% of all farmers, 20% of the village collective economic union, 20% of the county tourism investment group, and 20% of the cooperatives. Farmers can participate in dividend distribution as "multiple" members, and can also obtain income by participating in business operation.
"The new exploration of Youyang is to effectively implement the rural revitalization driven by the concept of common prosperity!" Qi Meiwen said that, through the support of a series of agricultural policies, new concepts, new technologies and new mechanisms are used to revitalize rural resources, creatively continue the excellent tradition of rural mutual assistance and mutual benefit for thousands of years, and make agriculture stronger, rural beauty better, and farmers richer.
