technology
There are 900 million farmers in China.
The history of reform and opening up has witnessed three calls to open up rural markets. 900 million farmers constitute the largest consumer group in the world and also create the biggest business opportunities in China.
Faced with the dual competitive pressure on China from the high-tech advantages of developed countries and the price advantages brought by the devaluation of neighboring countries, China made it clear that in the long run, while actively exploring the international market, we must actively explore the domestic market, especially the rural market. This is a strategic choice in line with China's national conditions.
Rural market is the most dynamic and realistic fulcrum to expand domestic demand and promote economic growth. The shortage of effective demand has become the biggest obstacle to China's economic development. In a series of macro-control measures to be taken in the second half of this year, opening up the rural market is regarded as "a tiger rope". Experts estimate that every 6,543.8 billion yuan of final consumption in rural areas will generate 235.6 billion yuan of consumption demand for the whole national economy.
It is also a new starting point for economic restructuring and product restructuring. Nowadays, the buyer's market has penetrated into every corner of China's economy. In more than 900 kinds of important industrial products, more than half of the production capacity utilization rate is less than 50%, and structural adjustment is imminent.
In order to successfully explore the rural market, industrial enterprises must produce goods that meet the needs of rural areas; Commercial enterprises must skillfully establish smooth and fast marketing channels.
There are many difficulties in opening up the rural market. There are many reasons. For example, some local governments have insufficient understanding of the importance and urgency of developing rural markets, are afraid of difficulties, and lack confidence in completing this task; A considerable number of industrial and commercial enterprises still have the concept of "emphasizing the city over the countryside", which is manifested in the fact that the product structure does not meet the needs of the rural market, the variety of goods is single, and it is inconvenient for farmers to buy.
In fact, the rural market has great potential, and there are many favorable conditions for developing the rural market. As long as industrial and commercial enterprises really attach importance to the rural market, seriously study the needs of farmers, and make great efforts to open up the rural market, they will certainly achieve the expected results.
Industrial enterprises emphasize the production of goods that meet the market demand, while commercial enterprises emphasize smooth and fast marketing channels.
Efforts will be made to develop new sales methods such as chain stores, agents and distribution centers, and to establish various forms of sales networks that combine industry and commerce, commerce and commerce, urban and rural areas, state-owned businesses and individual and private businesses. China businessmen will display their talents in the rural market.
The key to developing rural market lies in increasing farmers' income. It is necessary to open the rural consumer goods market and let farmers buy things; First of all, we should open the rural agricultural products market and let farmers' wallets swell up.
Farmers' income is entering a new round of growth rate decline period.
The slow growth of farmers' income is the biggest factor that hinders the development of rural markets. When farmers' wallets are not so bulging, the growth of actual consumption demand will be slow. Increasing farmers' income is essentially to enhance the adaptability of rural economy to socialist market economy. Authorities believe that we must grasp two links: First, "what to plant". Farmers must plant crops that are easy to generate added value.
Therefore, it is necessary to adjust and optimize the agricultural structure and develop characteristic agriculture with high efficiency and high added value. Followed by "how to sell products". To increase farmers' income, the key is to solve the problem of the relationship between farmers and the market, and let farmers enter this ever-changing big market smoothly. This requires the development of agricultural industrialization and the cultivation of wholesale market system, intermediary service system and information service system.
It is an important aspect of invigorating the circulation of agricultural products and industrial products to cultivate the wholesale trading market system by making use of traditional advantages, location advantages, resource advantages and industrial advantages. Experience in many places has proved this point.
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China may hold the future of food technology.
Dennis avery
Senior Research Fellow and Director, Center for Global Food Issues, Hudson Institute
Is it possible for the first world to make China in a real monopoly position in agricultural biotechnology, which is destined to be one of the most valuable technologies in 2 1 century?
Have the United States and Europe given up billions of dollars in agricultural-related biotechnology income and hundreds of thousands of clean and high-tech research and support jobs?
The United States and Europe have spent billions of dollars on basic research on genetically modified crops and animals to make food that tastes better, is more nutritious and is more environmentally friendly.
Will China now step in and charge high royalties to the United States and Europe in order to gain the right to grow the new creatures produced by this research?
These are all great possibilities after the environmental organization Greenpeace's astonishingly rapid and successful campaign to ban genetically modified foods and crops.
First world investors are afraid of falling into another controversy like tobacco, or another unfounded class action lawsuit like silicone breast augmentation.
They had given up agricultural biotechnology long before the government dared to take action. In order to avoid controversy, Monsanto's orphan agricultural biotechnology department will be thrown into a hostile stock market along with its laboratories and patents worth billions of dollars.
The same is true of the large agricultural biotechnology departments of Novartis and Jielikang in Europe. Look for all three layoffs. Don't expect fired scientists to find jobs in public research institutions.
Now, publicly funded research laboratories will lack agricultural biotechnology even more than the private sector. Scientists in the past will have to give up their doctorates and start a new career.
A few lucky people may find jobs in the field of human medical biotechnology, which has not yet been attacked by the environmental movement. This has nothing to do with the risk to people or the environment. Despite the media hype, the real dangers associated with biotech foods have never been recorded.
But Greenpeace seems to want a smaller and poorer population, so they are willing to scare the world back to the dark age of science. One thing is certain, genetic engineering in food production will not disappear.
When astronomer Galileo published his proof that the earth moves around the sun in 1632, the Catholic Church put him under house arrest. The church declared that the earth is the center of the universe. But people can no longer look at the sun in exactly the same way. They have gained new knowledge.
The first world may be so comfortable that it can refuse biotech food. But the third world is still trying to provide adequate food for its growing population.
For developing countries, the choice is severe. They can use biotechnology to increase production, plant more low-yield crops by cutting down tropical forests, or import food from the west. In view of these choices, biotech foods look very attractive.
Most third world countries are too small or too poor to develop agricultural biotechnology on their own. Countries like Brazil and Argentina can pool scientific resources, but they are afraid of losing export sales to nervous European and Japanese consumers.
India may want to develop high-yield biotech crops to alleviate its shortage of arable land, but its own thorny activists are still arguing about hybrid seeds. They are likely to bind India's biotechnology in the near future.
China is the only country in the world that has the scientific strength to develop biotechnology in the agricultural field. It urgently needs a lot of extra food and feed, and there is no need to allow unfounded food panic to be published in newspapers.
Due to the low cost, more than 1 10,000 farmers in China have planted transgenic cotton, corn and soybeans. Anyone who doubts China's ability to develop excellent science ignores the country's glorious history and recent ballistic missile tests.
"Golden rice" itself may be enough to ensure the reputation of genetically modified foods among consumers in China. Asian women have a high risk of reproductive complications because phytate in the rice they eat leads to iron deficiency.
Golden rice counteracts phytate and provides sufficient dietary iron. It also contains a lot of vitamin A, which is also lacking in many rice cultivation diets.
The International Rice Research Institute has cultivated the golden rice gene into a rice variety popular with people in Asia and Africa. Is Greenpeace cold enough to keep poor rice growers away from golden rice and return to childhood blindness?
Using biotechnology, China should be able to produce attractive foods, such as healthier fat for cooking, nuts without allergic reaction, tender steak, and the last delicious out-of-season tomato.
Every vitamin and mineral that the human body needs can be processed into our food, saving consumers billions of dollars in food supplements.
When consumers in the first world find these good things, China can export them or charge farmers in other countries for planting.
This biotechnological crop will also greatly increase the yield, especially in marginal farmland where drought and acid soil currently limit the yield. Greenpeace should cheer for this, because it will directly help save tropical forests in Asia.
Of course, if farmers in the third world can produce higher yields and more popular specialty foods through biotechnology, farmers in the first world will lose a large part of their export potential. At present, it seems that this is the price they pay for agriculture in a rich country with food surplus.