Real farmers needed

Most young people from the countryside in China now choose to work in the city as migrant workers. More than 33 percent of farmers are now over 50. And 80 percent of farmers in the middle and western parts of China are between 50 and 70, says an article in 21st Century Business Herald. Excerpts:

Yet, private companies always complain about the lack of migrant workers amid rising labor costs. So the labor shortage has become a real problem for the Chinese economy, which has depended on a cheap labor force and labor-intensive industries for decades.

China's urbanization process didn't start with the development of villages or towns, but with expanding cities and the urban population explosion.

The huge migration of population between rural and urban areas poses pressing challenges to the social security and public service systems in the city and damages China's agriculture productivity and competitiveness as well.

The tendency is for young migrant workers to start integrating in the city before the modern agriculture industry is developed in the countryside. The ratio of rural aging population is 15 percent, two percentage points higher than the national average.

Neither the urbanization process nor the transformation of the economic growth model in China can be accomplished without the development of modern agriculture and villages based on technology and good governance.

Only when the development of Chinese agriculture and villages is ensured can China's urbanization process turn into a healthy direction. Otherwise, it will always be a zero-sum game between the city and the village.