By Zhang Yunhua, Research Department of Rural Economy, DRC

Research Report No.20, 2016 (Total 4903) 2016-3-14

Abstract: Family farms are the most common agricultural management mode around the world. They play a vital role in modern agricultural development and are attracting worldwide attention. Faced with agricultural marketization and globalization, agriculture in China is caught in a small-scale farming dilemma, slowing down the pace of agricultural modernization. Family farms are the key to getting China’s agriculture out of such a dilemma. Compared with corporate farms and collective farms, family farms enjoy economic management efficiency which is the secret for the successful management of family farms over years. We should stick to the building of family farms, but not corporate farms, as the major mode for future agricultural management. We should design development strategy for family farms, enhance related management and service, give them legal status and offer them specific support. Rural urbanization is helpful for land circulation and family farms’ expansion. We should improve the circulation system of land management and stabilize the development of family farms. Agricultural mechanization and family farms could promote each other’s development and we should highly support the industrial upgrading of agricultural machinery and the development of agricultural machinery social service industry.

Key words: family farms, agricultural management mode, international experience, policy implications