Building a Strong Agricultural Country Promoting the Deep Integration of Digital Technology and the Agricultural Industry

Release date：2023/08/02　　Source： 光明网-理论频道

Author: Yi Hongmei (Professor, School of Advanced Agriculture, Peking University)

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that a strong country must first strengthen agriculture, and a strong country can only be strong when agriculture is strong. Without strong agriculture, there is no whole modernized strong country; without agricultural and rural modernization, socialist modernization is not comprehensive. To achieve the goal of strong agriculture, there is an urgent need to transform and upgrade China's agricultural industry.In 2021, China's primary industry accounted for 7.2% of GDP, the employment population accounted for 22.9%, and the labor productivity of the agricultural sector was only 23.4% and 28.5% of that of China's industrial and service sectors in the same period. In terms of industrial structure, the ratio of the output value of China's agricultural products processing industry to the total agricultural output value is 2.5:1, while the developed countries have reached 3.5:1. At the same time, the total amount and structure of China's residents' food consumption are upgrading, the pressure on the resources and environment is worsening, and the uncertainty brought by climate change is further increasing. Therefore, the agricultural industry urgently needs transformation and upgrading to cope with these new challenges and uncertainties.

Digital technologies have brought new opportunities for agricultural transformation and upgrading, and some relatively mature digital technologies are empowering agricultural transformation and upgrading by cracking the challenges facing it. For example, e-commerce promotes farmers' income by reducing intermediary links; mobile Internet promotes high-quality agricultural development and the integration of one, two, and three industries by improving access to information, lowering the cost of factor allocation, expanding the scope of the market, enhancing the accessibility of financial services, and improving producers' knowledge; and digital solutions for agri-food supply chain systems enhance the quality of agricultural development and the integration of one, two, and three industries by creating links between different companies, producers, and consumers and by sharing information, strengthening collaboration between different companies in the supply chain, accurately grasping consumer demand and reducing waste. It can be said that the application of digital technologies in the agricultural sector is growing at a fast pace and is becoming an important driver for the transformation of agricultural production systems, value chains and food systems. Digital advisory services and financial services, e-commerce and procurement of agricultural products, and smart agricultural technologies offer solutions to the lack of producer knowledge, lack of market opportunities, financial exclusion, climate change, and increasing aging in traditional agriculture.

However, it must be recognized that the overall level of application of digital technologies in the agricultural industry is still relatively low, mainly in two aspects: First, the digital technologies that are relatively widely used in the rural industry are mainly non-embedded technologies such as digital consulting services, digital financial services, and agricultural product e-commerce platforms, and the rate of adoption of embedded technologies using equipment as a carrier is relatively low. Second, even when non-embedded digital technologies are adopted, deep digital technology applications are rare. For example, the application of digital financial services by farmers is dominated by money transfer transactions, and there is relatively little understanding and application of financial products such as credit.

At the same time, digital technology has also brought new challenges to the transformation and upgrading of agriculture, and even made some of them more severe. First, from the industrial level, the "winner-takes-all" business model of the digital economy may further intensify the degree of centralization of the agricultural industry and the entire agricultural supply chain, and the head enterprises may affect the stability and security of the food system by shaping the rules of the market, technology, policy and innovation. Secondly, digital technology has reshaped the industrial chain, value chain and benefit chain, when platform technology replaces middlemen, and smart agriculture technology replaces manual labor and "human brain", skill-biased technological progress will lead to the transformation and upgrading of rural industries to become less and less inclusive of small farmers, and the "digital divide" will further magnify this negative impact. The "digital divide" will further amplify this negative impact. Finally, the introduction of digital technology will also highlight to some extent the problem of weak rural human capital. Globally, whether in the agricultural sector or in the industrial or service sector, the application of digital technologies has changed the content of work and the structure of employment, leading to changes in the skills demanded of workers in the labor market. Currently, the complexity of smart agriculture makes the entire agricultural system face the challenge of human capital, which has become a major constraint affecting the adoption, use, and ability to profit from the adoption of digital technologies by farmers.

Promoting the deep integration of digital technology and agriculture in the future requires strengthening the construction of relevant supporting systems to meet these challenges. First, top-level design should be strengthened to enhance the universality and inclusiveness of digital technologies through institutional construction. For example, at present, small farmers are still the main force in China's agricultural production, government departments can implement "conditional" support policies for various types of large-scale market players, driving small farmers to integrate into the modern agri-food supply chain as a "condition" for their support, and increase the participation of small farmers in the modern agri-food supply chain. Increase opportunities for smallholders to participate in modern agri-food supply chains. Strengthen the training of family farmers, farmers' cooperatives, and other new business leaders with strong driving ability through talent training programs such as the "wild geese" program, improve their support and assessment mechanisms, and enhance the negotiating power of small farmers in the supply chain, as well as the proportion of value-added sharing. Second, the government should create an enabling business environment and encourage the development of diverse market players. The current major service providers of agricultural digital technology include high-tech enterprises, agricultural input enterprises, non-agricultural hardware producers, startups, and some agricultural processing and trading enterprises, which promote the process of digital transformation of the agricultural industry, but their vertical mergers (especially their penetration into the production chain) have an uncertain impact on the agricultural countryside, and the government sector needs to strengthen its supervision. At the same time, government departments need to strengthen support for the digital transformation of small and medium-sized leading agricultural enterprises and new business entities to enhance their competitiveness and strengthen the foundation of food security. Third, government departments should establish an education and training system that is easier to enter and exit, more adult-friendly, and more flexible, and strengthen the popularization of general knowledge of commonly used digital technologies in combination with digital education and training tools, so as to raise the level of digital literacy of practitioners across the agricultural sector, and to enhance the employability of the agricultural transfer population in the context of digitization.

While making full use of the opportunities brought by digital technology, we need to recognize that digital technology is not a panacea and is not the only means to address the challenges faced by the agricultural industry. Digital technology, as a representative of advanced productive forces, requires production relations that are adapted to it; therefore, institutional arrangements that contribute to the successful application of digital technology need to be continuously explored and summarized through practice.

Link:https://share.gmw.cn/theory/2023-08/02/content_36739291.htm