Supply-side reform of agricultural product processing industry: looking for growth points in industrial convergence

"A sheep can't be sold directly for a thousand yuan. Now it is made into vacuum-packaged cooked food, and the price is three times the original price." Wang Hongfei, head of the Yunbei Straw Utilization Professional Cooperative in Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province, was very fortunate that when the price of mutton fell last year, he was able to cooperate with the food factory to engage in deep processing of mutton, which turned the cooperative into a profit. Making good products "delicious" is only the first step in the transformation of cooperatives. This year, they let sheep "fun" up, set up a lake sheep "farmhouse".

In the context of the structural reform of the agricultural supply side, more and more new agricultural business entities, like the "Yunbei" cooperative, have begun to set foot in the secondary and tertiary industries such as agricultural product processing and leisure agriculture from the traditional planting and breeding industry to explore new growth points and share agricultural value-added benefits.

The agricultural product processing industry, which naturally has the attribute of "one after another", faces the profound changes in the internal and external environment of the industry, in accordance with the ideas of reform and innovation to increase momentum, transformation and upgrading to improve quality and efficiency, and implementation of policies to promote integration, guided by agricultural product processing, promote industrial integration and development, extend the agricultural industry chain, expand the functions of the agricultural industry, make agriculture stronger, rural areas beautiful, and farmers rich.

Aiming at "effective supply" and activating new growth momentum

In Hualong Town, Shouguang City, Shandong Province, pickles processing is a pillar industry. However, since 2014, due to the saturation of the market, many factories have closed down, and the Bailiheng pickles factory, which was once famous for its sales performance of "1000 boxes a day", is also in trouble. "Labor costs continue to increase, market sales continue to decline, how to make the factory live?" Zhao Wenping, the person in charge, was troubled.

It is not only Shouguang vegetable deep processing that has been tested. With China's economy entering the new normal, agricultural products processing is also facing the double squeeze of price "ceiling" and cost "floor", and encounters the bottleneck of capital, technology and other factors.

However, opportunities and challenges coexist: residents' income has doubled, consumption structure has changed, consumption levels have been upgraded, and new demands have continued to emerge; technology and equipment have been upgraded, and there is a broad space for industrial development. Transformation and upgrading, structural reform is imperative.

In 2016, the No. 1 central document clearly proposed to strengthen the structural reform of the agricultural supply side, adjust the structure, improve the quality, promote integration, remove inventory, reduce costs, and make up for shortcomings. Promote the transformation and upgrading of the agricultural product processing industry, strengthen the technological innovation of agricultural product processing, promote the coordinated development of agricultural product primary processing, intensive processing and comprehensive utilization processing, and increase the conversion rate and added value of agricultural product processing.

This means that the processing of agricultural products should achieve effective supply: on the one hand, to meet the needs of consumption upgrading, to carry out in-depth development of agricultural resources, to improve the quality of efforts, better "sell out"; on the other hand, to promote the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, to develop agricultural and rural production and living ecological resources, to "bring in" consumption, and to extend the agricultural value chain. In this way, the "staying" farmers can share the dividends, and it can also attract the "going out" farmers to return to their hometowns for entrepreneurship and innovation.

"Adhere to the goal of increasing agricultural efficiency and increasing farmers' income, take the integrated development of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries as the work path, and take the three major tasks of agricultural product processing industry, leisure agriculture, and farmers' innovation and entrepreneurship as the work layout." At the National Agricultural Product Processing Industry and Leisure Agriculture Work Conference at the end of 2015, Chen Xiaohua, Vice Minister of Agriculture, said that he set the tone for the work of the agricultural product processing system in the future.

Three major projects to lead, to create an upgraded version of the industry"

The supply-side structural reform aims to resolve excess capacity from the supply side, adjust and optimize the structure, and promote the industry to move towards the middle and high end. "To develop the agricultural product processing industry, we must promote scale expansion to transformation and upgrading, factor-driven to innovation-driven, and decentralized layout to industrial clusters; the development of leisure agriculture must be integrated with modern agriculture, agricultural product processing industry, beautiful villages, ecological civilization, and cultural and creative industry construction., Farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation are integrated; to guide farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation, it is necessary to create a good environment and stimulate farmers' entrepreneurial and innovative vitality." Zong Jinyao, director of the Agricultural Products Processing Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture, said.

To this end, the Agricultural Products Processing Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture focuses on implementing the "three major projects": the transformation and upgrading project of the agricultural product processing industry, accelerating the development of primary processing in the producing area, promoting intensive processing, improving the processing level of staple food, and promoting comprehensive utilization; leisure agriculture promotion project, cultivating leisure agriculture brands, exploring agricultural cultural heritage, and promoting targeted poverty alleviation in leisure agriculture and rural tourism. Implement and create policies for farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation.

In promoting the transformation and upgrading of the processing industry, the central government has allocated 0.9 billion yuan in subsidies for the initial processing of agricultural products. This year, the project implementation area in Xinjiang has been expanded to 83 counties and cities in Xinjiang, and a total of 7609 primary processing facilities for various agricultural products have been built, and the annual project income can reach 4 billion yuan.

Governments at all levels do everything possible to promote the agricultural product processing industry to inventory, reduce costs and make up for shortcomings. Henan proposed to speed up the selection and popularization of high-quality special grain varieties, and guide grain processing enterprises with low technical level and serious losses to withdraw. Hubei has continuously implemented the "four batches" project of the agricultural product processing industry, forming a cluster development pattern.

Processing enterprises have strengthened technological innovation and optimized product structure. Xiwang Group produces fiber feed and starch sugar after separation and processing of corn seed coat and endosperm, so as to improve the comprehensive utilization rate. Guangyou potato industry research and development of whole potato nutrition fans, potato breakfast and other series of food, leading the consumption of potato staple food.

In promoting leisure agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture has focused on building a "3 1 X" brand system for leisure agriculture and rural tourism, deploying the establishment of leisure agriculture and rural tourism demonstration counties, promoting beautiful leisure villages in China, and releasing 528 high-quality leisure agriculture and rural tourism routes and 1502 high-quality spots to attract 0.2 billion tourists to rural leisure consumption.

Where leisure agriculture started earlier, it has begun to promote diversified development. Sichuan has promoted the transformation of leisure agriculture from a single business entity "farmhouse entertainment" to a diversified business entity. For example, Niu Nianping, Zhongfeng Township, Mingshan District, Ya 'an City, has built a tea tourism complex, driving more than 10 family farms around to develop leisure tea houses and more than 30 farmers to set up "farmhouse entertainment".

In serving farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation, the Ministry of Agriculture deploys farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation services by improving a set of policies, building a number of platforms, cultivating a number of leaders, summarizing a number of models, and building a service system. Jointly issued the "Notice on the Implementation of the Five-Year Action Plan for Migrant Workers and Other Personnel to Return Home to Start a Business (2016-2020)", and strive to allow all those who are willing to return home to start a business to participate in a training by 2020.

Local governments at all levels serve entrepreneurs by providing entrepreneurial funding vouchers, granting policy loans, and building entrepreneurial incubation bases. The "Migratory Bird Return" plan and "Spring Breeze Action" implemented by the agricultural departments of Zhejiang, Heilongjiang and other places have been promoted nationwide.

To achieve smooth operation, open up a new realm of integration and development

Focusing on market demand, the adjustment and transformation of extending the agricultural industry chain and expanding the multi-function of agriculture has already made the forerunners taste the sweetness.

Shouguang "Bailiheng" pickle factory in groping to find the right consumer demand: the pickle products on the Internet, to the country; research and development of low-salt pickles, specializing in the southern market; equipped with testing equipment, to control the quality... corporate profits against the trend of rising, monthly sales to 1 million yuan advance.

The Huyang "Nongjiale" of the Tongxiang "Yunbei" Cooperative brought unexpected gains. "In the three days of May 1st alone, more than 1500 people were received." Wang Hongfei said that the next step is to take advantage of the opportunity of promoting manor tourism in the city to build Lake Sheep Manor and refine the economy of Lake Sheep.

In the process of agricultural supply-side structural reform, the national agricultural product processing industry is operating well, and the confidence index has increased, showing a trend of "stable production costs, overall increase in output, and improved profitability. According to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, from January to May this year, the added value of the agricultural product processing industry above designated size increased by 5.6 year-on-year, and the main business income increased by 5% year-on-year. According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Agriculture, the confidence index of entrepreneurs in the edible agricultural products processing industry in the second quarter increased by 6.1 points compared with the first quarter, showing a prosperous state.

In addition to the steady increase in quantity, various departments have jointly promoted the integration of rural industries more steadily and faster. The Ministry of Agriculture is preparing the "Thirteenth Five-Year Development Plan for the Integration of National Agricultural Products and Rural Industries"; cooperating with the National Development and Reform Commission and other seven departments to jointly implement the pilot demonstration project of rural industrial integration "100 counties, thousands of townships and ten thousand villages"; cooperating with the Ministry of Finance in 12 Provinces and cities have launched pilot projects for rural industrial integration; cooperating with the Agricultural Bank of China to arrange financial support for integrated development, it has recommend 448 industrial integration projects and 403 rural industrial integration subjects... Anhui, Hebei and other provinces have also issued implementation opinions to promote the development of rural industrial integration, and accelerated the establishment of a modern agricultural industrial system with industrial integration.

In the next step, the Agricultural Products Processing Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture will continue to actively guide processing companies to increase supply-side structural reforms, and strive to issue opinions to promote the development of the agricultural product processing industry; continue to carefully implement pilot projects for primary processing subsidies and industrial integration development; in-depth development of leisure Agriculture and rural tourism demonstration creation, encourage rural construction funds to tilt towards leisure agriculture gathering villages. New progress has been made in promoting the processing of agricultural products, leisure agriculture and rural tourism, farmers' entrepreneurship and innovation, and the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas.