The Change And Motives Of The Differentiation Of Small Farmers In China From The Perspective Of Modern Agriculture

Big country and small farmers are the basic national conditions and agricultural conditions of our country.Since the reform and opening up,with the rapid development of my country’s economy,industrialization,informatization and new urbanization have steadily advanced,and the characteristics of modern agriculture have become increasingly prominent.Small farmers are not only a micro-independent business entity integrating production and consumption,but also the main force of modern agricultural development and rural revitalization.A series of reform measures implemented more than 40 years ago,starting from the household contract responsibility system,reshaped the relationship between rural property rights,mobilized the enthusiasm of small farmers for production,and improved agricultural production efficiency.However,the characteristics of farmers’ farmland under the household contract system are fragmented and scattered,small-scale production methods,low risk resistance and low degree of mechanization,which make it difficult for small farmers to achieve the moderate scale,integration,intensification,integration,industrialization and technology required by modern agriculture.The differentiation of small farmers becomes a rational choice.The thesis is based on the development process of modern agriculture,guided by the theory of small farmers’ behavior and institutional change,and adopts the method of literature analysis and historical induction.On the basis of sorting out relevant literature,this paper looks back at the differentiation and changes of small farmers in the development process of modern agriculture after the reform and opening up from a historical perspective,summarizes the main behavioral decision-making of small farmers,as well as the forms and characteristics of small farmers’ differentiation,and finally explores the dynamic mechanism of the differentiation of small farmers and the main drivers of change.The main points of the paper are as follows:First,small-scale farmers refer to the small-scale land-contracting farmers formed after the implementation of the household contract responsibility system for joint production.They are agricultural micro-subjects integrating production and consumption.The differentiation of small farmers refers to the transformation of farmers into characteristic groups of different management entities,different management purposes,different management scales and different management organizations.This differentiation is a dynamic change process from consistency to heterogeneity,from singleness to diversity.The differentiation of small peasant households is manifested in changes in the overall quality of peasant households,such as their identity,business objectives,employment channels,organizational forms,and income structure.Second,combining the development background of modern agriculture and the government’s various policies to help and promote agriculture,this paper sorts out the evolution of small farmers’ differentiation from budding,beginning to developing and advanced stages from the time context.The joint production contract responsibility system established the status of small farmers as independent business entities.However,with the emergence of township enterprises,the establishment of the market economic system,the subsequent development of industrialization and urbanization 、 the reform of the land system,the implementation of agricultural industrialization,and the the emergence of various new forms of management and organization,the stickiness of small farmers to agricultural land is gradually weakening.During the differentiation process,the identity employment form,organizational model,and income structure of small farmers have undergone diversified changes,and gradually entered into the development of modern agriculture.Small farmers show the characteristics of concurrent employment,income diversification,organizational support,and large-scale operation.In the future,the modernization of small farmers will be the main trend.Third,the motivation for the differentiation of small farmers stems from the internal pull force and the external push force of the economic system and environment.The differentiation of small farmers is a rational choice to maximize their own interests;changes in the relationship between man and land and the improvement of agricultural production efficiency have encouraged small farmers to start different jobs;the development of urbanization and industrialization has provided the transfer of surplus agricultural labor.The land transfer system and relevant government support policies provide institutional guarantees for the differentiation of small farmers;the modernization of the modern agricultural production system and management system provides a development environment and space for the differentiation of small farmers.The innovation of the thesis is reflected in the historical sorting out of the change process of the differentiation of small farmers after my country’s reform and opening up from the perspective of modern agriculture,and the systematic analysis which focus on the content of the changes of small farmers involves farmers’ identity,business purposes,employment channels,income sources,and organizational form,etc.The article has certain theoretical and practical significance for correctly guiding the development of small farmers and accelerating the organic connection between small farmers and modern agriculture.