Abstract:

Under the impetus of economic and social development and the rural revitalization strategy, China’s grain output has maintained bumper harvests for many consecutive years, but it still faces challenges such as the low production efficiency and the large income gap among farmers. Given the national condition of “a large country with small-scale agriculture”, promoting the connection between small farmers and modern agriculture is of great significance, and agricultural socialized services have become a key bridge linking them. This paper focused on China's agricultural socialized services, aiming to analyze their development status and regional characteristics, draw lessons from international experience, and put forward development suggestions, so as to provide the reference for promoting agricultural modernization. In terms of the current development situation, the policy system for agricultural socialized services has been gradually improved, with increasingly clear policy goals, supporting the diversification of service subjects, the diversification of policy tools, and regional differentiation. In terms of the regional service structure, taking the socialized service situation in Henan Province as the analysis object, the agricultural socialized service market has formed a three-level market structure of "leading enterprises - agricultural machinery professional cooperatives - agricultural machinery professional households". The government took the lead in providing financial support, and market entities at different levels had complementary advantages. In terms of regional service characteristics, China has initially built a new agricultural socialized service system characterized by “government guidance, multi-stakeholder collaboration and functional complementarity”. This system took public service institutions as the basic support, cooperative economic organizations as the grassroots network, leading agricultural enterprises as the industrial hub, and social forces such as scientific research institutions and industry associations as important supplements. It combined public welfare services with commercial services and coordinates special services with comprehensive services. In terms of international experience, the United States has built a three-dimensional collaborative agricultural socialized service system adapting to large-scale agricultural production, which consisted of government public services, private enterprise services and farmer cooperative systems. Japan has established an agricultural socialized service system centered on agricultural associations, which was suitable for small-scale family operations. In the reform of their service systems, both countries have achieved upgrades in organizational structure, service content and technical empowerment. The common points of the two countries' service systems lay in connecting farmers with modern agriculture through organizational embedding, promoting agricultural modernization with technical empowerment, and innovating service content to enhance industrial competitiveness. Based on China's national conditions and international experience, the following policy suggestions were put forward: We should strengthen government guidance and institutional guarantees to consolidate the service foundation, cultivate diversified service subjects and build a collaborative service network, deepen financial and digital empowerment to improve service quality and efficiency, and improve the interest linkage mechanism to protect the rights and interests of small farmers.

Key words: agricultural socialization services, regional characteristics, international experience, small-scale household producers, modern agriculture, service market structure, Henan Province