中国农业资本化的动力:公司,国家,还是农户?

The Dynamics of the Capitalization in Chinese Agriculture:Private Firms,the State,or Peasant Households?

过去15年间,中国农业经历了悄然但巨大的变化。“旧农业”(粮食、棉花、油料作物)大量使用机械及农药以节约劳动。与此同时,资本与劳动双密集的“新农业”(主要是高产值的蔬菜、水果、肉、禽、鱼)有着极大的发展。这些变化是伴随农业就业人员数的持续下降而来的。结果是中国农业显著地“资本化”了(亦即,单位劳动力资本投入的增加)。对于这些普遍被忽视的事实,本文将给出详细的量化证据。与通常的假设不同,中国农业资本化主要是由农户投资推动的,其总量比国家和农业企业公司的投资还要大。这一事实的重要意义在于,未来中国农业的发展,需更注重和依赖农户的能动作用。国家需对农民家庭的经营行为给予更大的服务和扶持,不应像过去10年间那样,一味将政策支持倾斜于“龙头企业”。

Chinese agriculture has undergone a quiet transformation in the past 15years.The“old agriculture”of grain,cotton and oil crops has seen a tremendous rise in uses of machinery(and also farm chemicals)to save labor.At the same time,the capital and labor dual-intensifying“new agriculture”of higher value products———vegetables,fruit,meat,poultry,fish—has expanded greatly.These changes have been accompanied by steady declines in the number of people working in agriculture.Together,the changes add up to a high degree of“capitalization”(i.e.increased capital inputs per unit labor)in Chinese agriculture.This article presents detailed quantitative evidence for these commonly neglected changes.Contrary to conventional assumptions,the capitalization has been powered principally by peasant household investments,more than state or capitalist firm investments.This fact points to the need to rely more on peasant initiative in the future,by providing greater state guidance and support for peasant family farm—based endeavors,rather than strongly favoring“dragon head”enterprises as in the past decade.