Reflections on the High-quality Development of Rural Areas in Guangshan County, Xinyang City

Tingting XIA, Minghua GU,3, Jie LIANG, Yongxian LIU,5, Mengling NONG,4, Zhiyue XIONG, Wei ZHOU, Xinsheng LI, Yimiao LI, Lishan HE,2*

1. College of Agriculture, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China; 2. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Sugarcane Biology, Nanning 530004, China; 3. Guangxi Key Laboratory for Agro-Environment and Agro-Products Safety, Nanning 530004, China; 4. National Demonstration Center for Experimental Plant Science Education, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China; 5. Agricultural Resource and Environment Research Institute, Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanning 530007, China

Abstract The problems faced by the development of Guangshan County were analyzed from the aspects of rural management talents, industrial structure, e-commerce development, and farmers’ ideology, and corresponding solutions were proposed to improve the development speed of rural areas in the county and promote the high-quality development of the county as a whole.

Key words Guangshan County, Agricultural talents, Rural industrial structure, High-quality development of rural areas

1 Introduction

Guangshan County is located in the southeast of Henan Province, and borders the Dabie Mountains in the south and the Huaihe River in the north. It is rich in resources and products. The southern mountainous area is fertile, where tea is mostly planted; the northern low hills and plains have deep soil, where many food crops are planted. It has a pleasant climate, with four distinct seasons, so it is livable. The economic development trend is good, and the industrial carrying capacity is strong; the primary, secondary and tertiary industries have obvious resource advantages. However, due to the low quality of resource development, the inadequate implementation of government policies, and the low level of public attention, there are large differences in urban and rural development, which in turn affects the overall development of Guangshan County. In recent years, the party and the state have successively issued documents, policies and norms, paying more and more attention to rural development. Relevant personnel have also responded positively and committed themselves to rural development. In this paper, the problems of Guangshan County in the development of rural areas were analyzed, such as the relative lack of excellent management talents at the rural grassroots level, the incomplete integration of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, problems in e-commerce development, the environmental pollution from rural development, and the obstacles to the development of Guangshan County caused by the above subjective and objective reasons, and corresponding solutions were proposed. These measures are taken to improve the quality of development. Besides, natural resources will be more fully utilized, and industrial development will be more dynamic; human resources will be more properly used, and rural management will be more orderly; the environment will be cleaner and less polluted, and the development trend is better.

2 Problems

2.1 There is a relative shortage of excellent talents, and the management system needs to be standardizedThere are relatively few management talents in rural areas of Guangshan County who have both high education and rich experience. Common village cadres and members of village committees are "village guards" who understand village affairs but have little theoretical knowledge, and "young people" who just graduated from college. It is undeniable that the two may become excellent talents in rural management after time. However, the talents who are most suitable for rural management at this stage are attracted by the more generous welfare benefits in big cities. Due to the “push force” of the relatively poor environment and treatment in rural areas, and the “pull force” of the relatively convenient environment, broad platform and brighter future in cities, excellent talents in rural management are relatively scarce. The rules are artificially formulated, that is, correspondingly, the rules and regulations of rural management are relatively unstandardized, and these have become important reasons for restricting the development of rural areas in the county.

2.2 The integration of the three industries is not thorough enough, and the comprehensive effect cannot be brought into playAccording toHenanStatisticalYearbook2021, the GDP of Guangshan County in 2020 was 23.570 billion yuan, of which the values of the primary, secondary and the tertiary industries were 5.923 billion,7.371 billion and 10.277 billion yuan, respectively. It is not difficult to see from the data that the government paid more attention to the development of the secondary and tertiary industries. Although the proportion of the tertiary industry in the county was the largest, it still failed to achieve the effective integration of the three industries. For example, the farmers who grow rice in the county still only grow rice, neither do they plant them in a concentrated way, nor do they cooperate with local leading companies to extend the industrial chain and process rice; the factory processing industry only contributes to the secondary industry; it is also rare for the primary and tertiary industries or the secondary and tertiary industries to integrate with each other and maximize economic benefits[2]. That is to say, the industrial chain cannot be extended, and various industries cannot be integrated to exert the maximum effect, which greatly limits the driving effect of Guangshan County’s industrial development to drive the overall economic development.

2.3 There are many obstacles to the development of e-commerce, and the effect of poverty alleviation is slowAs a national poverty-stricken county, Guangshan County has a large number of impoverished people in rural areas, so raising farmers’ income has naturally become the top priority of the government’s work. In April 2020, according to a report from Henan Image Network, Guangshan County currently had 1 735 households with 4 951 people who have not been lifted out of poverty. The great achievements in poverty alleviation in Guangshan County are "the huge changes brought to Guangshan by a single network cable". Poverty alleviation by e-commerce is the most effective way to get rid of poverty, and it is also an important measure to improve the income of farmers, but there are many difficulties on the road of e-commerce development to increase farmers’ income and then promote economic development.

Firstly, the rural e-commerce project in Guangshan County needs to invest a lot of money in the process of development, and it is difficult to raise it. Secondly, there is no special supervision department for the use of funds. As a result, government special funds and funds raised by the private sector may be misappropriated, and it is impossible to fully implement them into e-commerce projects. In addition, the relevant staff members are obviously "sluggish" in their work due to the lack of their own ability. With the improvement of the relevant system, the technical requirements of this work are getting higher and higher. Due to the lack of professional ability of the relevant staff, it is difficult to provide effective help to e-commerce farmers[2]. Besides, the imperfect training system of e-commerce talents is another major obstacle to the development of e-commerce. The government-led e-commerce training conducts a large number of e-commerce training, but neglects to classify them by knowledge level and strictly control them. As a result, e-commerce is blooming everywhere but lacks supervision and management, which in turn slows down the development of e-commerce.

2.4 The cleanliness of the environment is worrying, and the environmental pollution from the three industrial wastes is seriousAlthough relevant personnel continue to promote "garbage classification" and "building a beautiful village", the villagers’ hygiene habits cannot be changed overnight, and the living environment in the countryside is still worrying. Especially in terms of garbage classification, the villagers did not do well. Each household is given with three trash cans with different characters and signs for free, but people still habitually throw different types of garbage in the same trash can until it is full, which increases the working difficulty of cleaning workers. Even before the daily cleaning work of the cleaners, colorful garbage can be seen on different roads in the countryside, and the overall cleanliness of the environment is poor.

In addition, the environmental pollution from the three industrial wastes in Guangshan is serious. For instance, while contributing to the county’s GDP, the famous "Tianrui Cement Factory" in Guangshan also brings serious air pollution from dust, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which degrades air quality and increases the risk of people suffering from respiratory diseases. Besides, wastewater pollution is serious. The wastewater of cement factories mainly includes production wastewater and domestic wastewater. In the case of less sewage treatment equipment, it is more directly discharged into the ground, which will further cause water pollution and threaten people’s life safety[3]. At the same time, some discarded dregs processed by cement plants are piled up on the side of a road, which not only makes it inconvenient for passers-by to travel, but also increases the difficulty of managing rural environment.

3 Countermeasures and suggestions

3.1 Improving the talent recruitment and training system and enhancing the attractiveness of rural areasTo solve the problem of shortage of senior management talents with both theoretical knowledge and practical experience in Guangshan County, some measures should be taken as follows. On the one hand, the talent recruitment and training system should be improved. First, different personnel recruitment standards should be set up, and new graduates’ academic qualifications rather than majors should be focused on. Academic qualifications do not represent personal ability, but can reflect their learning ability. For social workers, their working experience and years should be focused on. In order to ensure the quality of rural services, a minimum of one year of relevant work experience is required. In addition, the applicant’s previous work achievements and contributions are also one of the important indicators for inspection. Secondly, from the the personal opinions expressed on the assumptions of different situations during the interview, whether the applicant has the ability to adapt to changes can be judged. On the other hand, various altruistic regulations and measures can be used to improve the attractiveness of rural work. For instance, through examinations and performance appraisals, some measures, such as providing staffing benefits, raising wages, increasing invisible benefits, and assigning jobs according to the distance from home, should be taken to attract management talents with real talents to serve the construction of beautiful villages.

3.2 Promoting the integration of different industries and highlighting local tourism characteristicsTo promote the effective integration of industries, the government can first issue corresponding preferential tax policies and corresponding regulations to subsidize farmers and enterprises that respond to the policies. For example, when farmers or grain brokers cooperate with local leading enterprises, the government can increase their tax incentives or refund part of the value-added tax. The rice harvested in the autumn of that year is directly sent to a factory for processing, and made into refined rice for sale. Under this model, the planting industry is combined with the industry and the entity business, which extends the industrial chain and realizes the mutual benefit and win-win of the three industries[4]. Secondly, it is possible to increase government investment or attract social capital to build camellia oleifera and tea viewing parks to achieve the integration of planting and tourism[5]. At the same time, when promoting the industrial integration of Guangshan County, it is necessary to utilize the unique cultural advantages of Sima Guang’s former residence and Deng Yingchao’s ancestral residence, and implement tourism resources into the primary and secondary industries, and develop new industrial integration methods such as factory themed tours, planting experience tours, and celebrity homestays to maximize economic effects[6].

3.3 Increasing investment in e-commerce development and promoting the integration of rural and urban areasFor the development of e-commerce in Guangshan County, the following responses can be made. At first, energy input should be increased. For instance, e-commerce workers with a certain degree of professional knowledge should be recruited to carry out work to provide more targeted help to e-commerce farmers; different levels of knowledge should be focused on in training, and people with different needs are trained to achieve "precise training". Secondly, supervision investment should be increased. For example, a professional e-commerce supervision department should be set up to not only supervise the legality and rationality of the work of the relevant personnel, but also facilitate the supervision of the raising and use of their financial funds and private funds, so that the special funds can be fully utilized[7]. In addition, the pick-up points for online grocery shopping in rural areas should be increased, which is also conducive to the high-quality development of rural e-commerce in Guangshan County, can increase the income of villagers, improve the quality of life of villagers, and promote the connection between rural and urban areas.

3.4 Raising villagers’ awareness of environmental protection and strengthening investment in science and technologyTo improve rural environmental sanitation, it is necessary to raise villagers’ subjective environmental awareness, increase investment in science and technology, introduce advanced equipment to deal with pollutants, and strengthen personnel on duty during special time periods. The formation of environmental awareness lies in the accumulation of time and the repetition of memory, so traditional publicity methods such as brochures, posters, and radio can continue to be used[8]. Cement factories can introduce advanced technology to reduce waste emissions. Using new media such as provincial and county-level TV stations, WeChat public accounts, and video accounts, relevant educational videos and regulatory documents are played in turn during prime time, and environmental protection small theaters are broadcast to warn and supervise industrial factories[9]. At the same time, relevant experts can actively study the equipment for recycling waste, so that the discharged waste can be recycled, minimize environmental pollution, and achieve energy saving and emission reduction. Furthermore, it is necessary to give full play to the subjective initiative of the designer to design some buildings that use less cement and then reduce pollution. In terms of rural sanitation work, it is necessary to moderately increase the work intensity of township road cleaners, such as extending the working hours from four hours to five hours a day to maintain road cleaning for a longer period of time. Meanwhile, the intentional destroyers of the rural environment will be severely punished to warn other villagers and promote the steady improvement of the quality of the rural environment.