Important Theories and Applications in Agricultural Economics
1. Public investment Theory and Its Application in Agricultural and Rural Development
(1) Rural Public investment Theory
Public investment refers to the capital investment made by a government department or other organizations for public interests and purposes. Infrastructure investment and agricultural investment are the two main categories of public investment.
Rural public investment refers to government investments focused on rural rather than urban infrastructure development. The three main areas of rural public investment are education, technology, and infrastructure.
Forms of rural public investment:
- Direct investment: The state invests directly as the main investor in major projects like large-scale river governance, flood control facilities, and cross-regional pest and disease control, which have a significant impact on agriculture.
- High-standard farmland construction: Effective connection between high-standard farmland and efficient water-saving irrigation, transformation of low- and middle-yield fields, black soil protection, saline-alkali land development and utilization
- Tackling key core agricultural technologies: seed industry revitalization, bio-breeding, seed law
- Enhancing the development and application level of agricultural machinery: high-power machinery, small hill orchard machinery, full-process mechanized harvesting
- Developing facility agriculture: greenhouses, seedling factories, vertical farming, water and fertilizer integration, intelligent environmental control
- Effectively preventing and responding to major agricultural disasters: flood and drought, pest control
- Guiding investment: investments in clusters with market orientation, technology orientation, information orientation, and capital orientation in rural areas.
- Modern farming and animal husbandry
- Modern seed industry
- Rural wealth-building industries
- Agricultural product processing and circulation industry
- New rural service industry
- Green development of agriculture and rural areas
- Agricultural technology innovation
- Agricultural and rural talent cultivation
- Agricultural and rural infrastructure construction
- Digital villages and smart agriculture construction
- Rural entrepreneurship and innovation
- Improvement of rural living environment
- Agricultural foreign cooperation
- Equity investment: The government, as one of the investors, can participate in investment, management, and profit distribution through capital links with other investors.
The overall requirements for rural public investment in China at present: stability first, with progress while maintaining stability, ensuring supply and security, revitalizing and smoothing circulation, and focusing on key areas of rural revitalization.
(2) Application of Rural Public investment Theory in Agricultural and Rural Development
- Channels to Increase Agricultural and Rural investment
- Expand the scale of local government bonds used for agriculture and rural areas
- Ensure fiscal support for agriculture
- Increase financial services for “Sannong” (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers)
- Actively guide and encourage social capital to invest in agriculture and rural areas
- Measures to Ensure Expansion of Agricultural and Rural Public investment
- Strengthen organizational leadership
- Strict supervision and assessment
- Solid planning and project reserves
- Further optimize the business environment
