Promoting the Competitiveness of China’s Agricultural Industry in the New Development Stage: From an Industry Security Perspective

Abstract

Promoting the competitiveness of China’s agricultural industry is crucial for building China into a great modern country. The aggravation of agricultural external risks and the basic national conditions—smallholder farmers, resource shortage, and tight balance of agricultural products supply and demand—propose new requirements and challenges to the competitiveness of China’s agricultural industry. It becomes urgent to redefine the competitiveness of agricultural industry and propose a corresponding strategic framework for the new development stage. In this study, we propose a new concept of agricultural industry competitiveness labeled as safe and diversified, green and efficient, core control, and independent competition. Moreover, we establish a competitiveness evaluation index system for the agricultural industry considering three core components: security assurance, industrial control, and market competitiveness; we evaluate the competitiveness of China’s agricultural industry using this system to explore the weaknesses of the industry. Furthermore, we propose competitiveness upgrade paths and countermeasures for China’s agricultural industry at the new stage. Specifically, China should ensure a stable supply of important agricultural products, expand the value-added space of its agricultural industry, promote the modernization of agricultural operation and services, encourage international cooperation, and give priority to the development of agricultural science and technologies.

Keywords

• competitiveness of the agricultural industry, security assurance, industrial control, market competitiveness, industry security