| At present, we are faced with a dilemma in agriculture——although agricultural inputs are increasing under the high attention of central government, a series of problems, such as the decrease of cultivated land, the increase of deserted land and the exacerbation of pesticide residue, are still difficult to be solved fundamentally. From the perspective of agricultural function, this embarrassing situation is rooted in the internal conflict between the political function and economic function of agriculture. Traditional methods, such as urbanization and raise subsidy for growing grain, are difficult to solve the present dilemmas in China’s agriculture. While the exploration and application of agriculture multi-function can coordinate traditional polices, sequentially enhance the effect of traditional policies and make up their deficiencies.The developing path of agricultural multi-function is that, the advanced functions, such as spiritual culture function, tourism and recreation function and ecological protection function, are developed on the basis of traditional food-supplying function (political function) and economy function. It’s possible to expand the developing space of agriculture by utilizing such functions synthetically. Chinese Buddhism has accumulated a lot of particular experience on developing and utilizing agricultural multi-function. On the basis of combing the related history of Chinese Buddhism, a field survey has been conducted at two famous temples in China, and then valuable experiences are summarized to drive the multi-function of China’s agriculture in new period from the temple economy and the institution of valuing both agriculture and Zen. On this basis, the dissertation proposes the implementation paths of multi-function of China’s agriculture, which includes three aspects:Firstly, we should rationally utilize the basic functions of agriculture, incorporating its food providing function and economic function. The degree of self-sufficiency of grain in our country has been decreasing year by year since2009. Though it’s still on the catch siding, the declining trend alerts us that high attention must be paid on the issue of food security all the time. Both urbanization and agriculture modernization ought to be implemented on the basis of ensuring food security.Secondly, modern functions of agriculture, like touring and leisure function and ecological protection function, should be expanded vigorously. After entering modern society, agriculture is not confined to provide food and income for us, as some new functions are derived gradually. The touring and leisure function, for example, not only can expand the channels of increasing income of farmers, but also can provide a natural health preserving place for people living in cities for a long time. While the ecological protection function is helpful to improve our living environment and food quality, even to promote the sustainable development of agriculture. Therefore, at the meantime of applying agriculture’s basic functions, we should pay more attention of explore its modern functions, which is one of the most important measures to come true the modernization of our agriculture.Thirdly, we should positively explore the advanced functions of agriculture, like spiritual and culture as well as charity function. Chinese culture is rooted in agriculture society, which means agriculture has irreplaceable effect on the inheritance and development of the excellent traditional culture. The ideology of valuing both agriculture and Zen and the practice of Buddhism charity indicate that, agriculture also has the function of promoting people’s mind state and charity. These functions are especially significant and urgent in today’s society with dissatisfactory morality. So, positively exploring agriculture’s advanced functions such as spiritual and culture function and charity function is not only valuable to inherit our excellent traditional culture, but also helpful to promote social harmony. What’s more, it can enrich the connotation of agriculture multi-function, endowing agriculture more humanistic meaning. |
