第十章、激活农业推广

Agro-technological extension in contemporary

China：How it has been activated since 1978

笔者说明：本人研习政治科学，何以又对农业技术推广发生兴趣？原来，政治科学下属两大学科政治发展学和国际政治学都认为人类社会，包括其中的国际社会的发展，其原动力皆在于创新，尤其是范式创新、军事创新。本土重整河山策当然少不了在全国范围内实行农业技术改造和农业技术推广。这篇论文原是本人在香港中文大学读研时的英文学科论文(1987 年 5 月 20 日递交)。它描述了当代中国农业技术推广体系如何从行政化向市场化转型，分析了这一转型对于促进中国农村迈进现代社会的巨大意义。为合本书科普科幻体例，转载此文之时删去附注。原文后附图表却为中文，此处仅取四份。

「辛苦遭逢起一经」，正是撰写这篇论文以及之前中专工科训练、知青劳作经历，钉稳了本人 20 年后于困顿之时以巨大的兴趣、坚韧的毅力来撰写这本原称《华夏千年兴邦策：改水变土隙地舟天》一书的头稿。真是「图南未可料，变化有鲲鹏」。

在此补充两项倡议、一项警告。倡议其一，全中国，尤其是大西北的 200 万平方公里的沙漠地区和沙化地面，经过增水、通渠、绿化、开垦后，除了公用地段，其上农户每户应有 60 亩耕地、100 亩牧地或者林地、山地；政府应于此处果断实行「农户土地长子继承制度」，不允农户土地再细碎化。那样，农业技术推广就会最终丧失可持续市场化接受方 Entrepreneurial adopter) ，行政化推广方(Administrative supplier)便会形同虚设。同理，将来还可以考虑，将現在已有的 18 亿亩耕地上的农户数目，减少至180000000÷60=3000000 户以下，之后同样实行农户土地长子继承制度。「新时代」大农业如欲大获成功，我国所有农村如欲永久脱贫，国家必得实行此一规模宏大千年兴邦之策──「三次土地改革」。新开、新转土地优先分给或者廉价卖给大学、中专毕业男性；对于原来农户长子可予免费大学、中专教育，前提乃是他们必须回到农村。以后有价转让也得整体──连宅基地──转让，不允拆分转让。每人仅有一亩三分地，还能指望搞啥农业技术推广哟！

倡议其二，我国若能普及第三章介绍的环山行农牧业，则完全可以考虑运用第九章所介绍的魏乐汉永磁数组磁啮传动技术，研发出来可为环山行农牧业(褐色革命)所用的实用新型农具，例如：永磁锐角(30~60 度)运输车、永磁船用动力机、永磁直角(90 度类电梯)水罐车。后者用于为高旱地最高处中心田头水柜加水──传统水泵所用水管仍有管壁摩擦阻力。如此类推，前程远大。这属于农业技术改造了。

警告：从清末肇始至今(1906-1987)，80 年(至 2017 年则为 101 年──笔者注)来，我国现代农业技术推广，无论是在完全行政性供给+完全市场性采用时期(1906-1949)，还是在完全行政性供给+完全行政性采用时期(1949-1978)，还是在半行政性/ 半市场性供给+ 完全市场性采用时期(1978-2019)，供给侧提供的农业技术几乎全是「模仿」即舶来品，而非「创新」即自创品。这样就使中国农业摆脱不了国际竞争劣势，仍需大量进口物美价廉的外国农畜产品。淡水养鱼欧美不兴，为我留下立足边角，但是研发全新优质高产水畜品种仍然裹足不前。以上预决我国农业「永蹶不振」。对转基因动植物的群发抗拒、朝议不决，很有可能令到我国丧失今后N 次农业革命的机遇。请看本文附件。袁隆平超级稻，到底有多少农户采用，已占全体的百分比是多少？为何不去研发高产旱地稻而去研发耐盐海水稻？

This tentative research paper attempts at developing a political understanding of a particular aspect of innovation diffusion in contemporary China with the gravity on its structural development.

1. Theoretical reference

As is well known, it is generally agreed that development is largely determined by innovation —its creation and diffusion. And in turn , a scholastic puzzle concerning the present topic thus is: by what  it  is determined in terms of diffusion of innovation? The dominant academic thinking on the subject had been the adoption perspective initiated by E.M. Rogers,which focuses on the demand side of diffusion up until the beginning of this decade. A newly-developed market and infrastructure perspective initiated by L.A. Brown challenges the traditional one by laying emphasis on the opposite supply side. It is , the Brownian perspective argues, the supply side rather than the demand side that largely determines the outcome of diffusion. “Unless the government, entrepreneurial or non-profit organization makes the innovation available at or near the location of the potential adopter by establishing a diffusion agency, that person or household will not have the option to adopt in the first place. A deeper implication of the Brownian perspective might go as far as to suggest that even the demand side itself is to a large extent determined by the supply side. Thus the chain relations of development, innovation, diffusion of innovation, and the supply side of diffusion may be connected into a chain functional formula with its ultimate independent variable being that last factor—the supply side。

This point of view giving priority to the supply side throws light upon the present study. In examination of the agro-technological extension in contemporary China, one may quickly come to a conclusion that it is no other than the supply side of diffusion, i.e. the pervasive state with its relevant functional affiliates that has proved persistently decisive in the extension. And moreover, it is the state that constitutes both dynamics of as well as obstruction to the extension simultaneously. The innovativeness of the adopter—the physical entity of the demand side had not, as will be revealed in the later part of this paper, played its proper if not decisive role until recent years.

Just as development, innovations and diffusion could be broken down for analytical purpose, both the supply side and the demand side of diffusion might be further categorize into, for the sake of conducting the present study, administrative or entrepreneurial supply, and administrative or entrepreneurial adoption. Their respective meanings are, as it were, self-evident if readers go through the whole article. This key are innovated by the author himself in the light of the above-mentioned Brownian and Rogersian approaches and should be subjected to further test by other students.

2. Historical background

Agro-technological creation and diffusion hag already steadily though slowly developed into an impressive degree in China before the Western Powers’ intrusion in the early 1840s. For example, two diffusion agents,

Huang Daopo (黄道婆) and Xu Guangq（i  徐光启）, were well known for their respective introduction of textile technology and sweet potato.

However, this ancient development is significantly different from the modern counterpart originated in Western Europe, which has been regretfully taken no notice by most overzealous propagandists in present China. even up  to the present, an ordinary person, say, a handicraftsman as innovative as Lu Ban (鲁班) but only with a science training background of middle school level, could hardly understand how a revolutionary qualitative-change is brought out by Newton until he studies Newtonian classical mechanics and calculus which has laid down, in T.C. Kuhn’s term, the pioneer paradigm for modern  science and technology. Although there are no evidence justifying the demographic distribution of potential genii is not random both in its  spatial and temporal patterns, yet how can we explain Newton just came forth in no other place than England? On the basis of R.K. Morton’s analysis, the author argues that it was by reason of the multiple socio-eco-political elements in the 17th century England favored aggregation of potential genii in the very field of science that made Newton born as an Englishman. In contrast, the Chinese state examination system and the state-endorsed Confucian training favored potential genii in such fields of literature, history and statecraft instead of science. In this context, how could not the Chinese miss the fortune?

The Chinese pre-Newtonian production of agriculture quickly proved no match for the Western post-Newtonian counterpart. Up to the eve of the Sino-Japanese Warn, the massive dumping of low-priced foreign farm products into the Chinese market had caused the Chinese agriculture approaching collapse.  During 1930-1935, the largest importation of China was nothing  else but cotton. Even silk and tea, the two traditional export farm products of China also lost their comparative advantages in the world market. If things keep going this way, the then economists lamented, China“could neither achieve industrialization or maintain its existing agricultural-country status. In order to promote China’s own agriculture interests, modern agro-technological extension was taken as a first countermeasure in resistance to the economic aggression from the West. So from the very beginning, it was closely politics, rather, it was actually politics-initiated.

In 1906, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) began to set up institutions in charge of agricultural, industrial and commercial affairs at national, provincial, and county levels. Agricultural schools, farmer associations and experimental farms were set up in many provinces according to imperial orders. In 1906 and 1910, two regulations concerning agro-technological1 extension affairs were issued respectively. It is estimated that before the Republican Revolution in 1911, various institutions in charge of or related to the extension affairs of the whole country amounted to 100 or so.

Between 1911 and 1927, several regulations concerning the extension affairs were issued by the newly established Republican government. Both the number and size of the then extension institutions were pitifully small. Between 1927 and 1937, the so called golden years of the Republic, the government had a chance to become more involved in improving the country’s agriculture. Besides promulgating regulations, it had also set up a separate central committee of agro-technological extension and a central demonstration area of agriculture. The extension institutions also spread to provincial and county levels in a sporadic way. During the Sino-Japanese War, the government set up a promotion committee of agriculture in Chongqing (重庆 ) which was responsible for giving guidance to the provincial institutions. In 1938, the then Administrative Council ( 行 政 院 ) promulgated an outline regulation concerning the organization of agriculture extension station at county level.  In 1944,  some provinces began to set up demonstration areas.  In the late 1946, a comprehensive report accomplished by a joint group composed of both Chinese and American agro-experts was issued. The report outlined a comprehensive plan for the post-war development of agro-technological extension in rural China.

However, in spite of these efforts, the Republican agro-technological extension was stagnating. In 1949, among the total 35 provinces, only 14 had sporadic county extension stations the number of which just amounted to 485. This is not in proportion to the country of such a big size which had thousands of counties and xiangs ( 乡 ). As Dr. Robert C. Hsu pointed out, “the greatest deficiency”in China’s agriculture,“was the lack of an agricultural extension…the governmental effort did not go beyond the planning stage”. Another Republican economist Cai Wuji also confirmed the poor situation by pointing out the only performance worthwhile mentioning of the Republican period is the extension of improved cotton seeds.

However, the most important obstruction hampering the agricultural development during the Republican period was not, as Dr. Hsu holds, solely“the protracted political instability and the resultant squandering of resources on military expenditures”, another most important obstruction was the prevailing feudal land ownership in rural China. Before the Sino-Japanese War, about 70% cultivated land was concentrated in the hands of the landlords and the rich farmers. On the other hand, the warlords, whether big or small, aggrandized their wealth through making levy of exorbitant taxes. Since the then conditions for industrialization were far from being ready, they had to spend the money in buying land instead of investing them in factories, which made the land concentration trend even worse.  During the Sino-Japanese  War, the Japanese carried out a colonial policy in their occupied area. “Peasants in the occupied area actually had become slaves of the Japanese corporations.”On the other hand, in the rear area, the land concentration trend continued due to the idle fun pouring in alongside with the retreat. Thus the exploitative degree was even higher than the pre-war period in the rear area.

A final note is worth mentioning before we end this discussion of the pre-1949 period. People may ask why the .Republicans did not initiate a land reform in time. The Japanese invasion and the civil war were by no means adequate reasons. The CCP had successfully carried on a land reform in its basic area throughout the same upheaval period. The immediate targets of a land reform were the landlords, gentries and the war lords who had come over and pledged allegiance to Chiang. But these were the very“social classes which comprised Chiang’s staunchest supporters. Thus Chiang faced an insoluble his traditional dilemma: to win the peasants he must lose the landlords. By became their hostage, doomed by the very people who had kept him in power!

So, dialectic dilemmatic paradigm was set up by the Republicans: the very major obstruction hampering the extension come from none else but the extension supplier himself, i.e. the state. Another heritage it left to its Communist successor is the administration-oriented inclination of the extension. A then circulative textbook on agro-extension written by the College of Agriculture of Jinling University (金陵大学农学院) taught no entrepreneurial supply. Government-run extension was taken for granted. However, the adopter was supposed to be of an entrepreneurial rather than an administrative nature. This was different, as we shall see, from the Communist approach.

 Graphics in Figure 1 illustrate the structural designs (except the 1st one) for the agro-extension during the Republican period.

3. Structural development of the agro-technological extension in contemporary China

Large-scale structural changes and technological transformation in rural China did not begin until the PRC established in 1949. The abovementioned extra/intra-political obstructions to the development of China' s agriculture were finally removed.

Before we go into further discussion, clarification on two basic definitions must be made beforehand.

In terms of the PRC's usage, Nongye jishu gaizhao ( technological transformation of agriculture（农业技术改造）is different from Nongye jishu tuiguang (agro-technological    extension（农业技术推广). The former is to a first approximation congruent with diffusion of agro-innovation, while the latter's   logic extension is only limited to the biological dimension within    the former, and added by the improvement of farm tools. According to the agriculture volume of“Cihai"(Disciplinary Dictionary/辞海）,Nongye jishu tuiguang includes the diffusion of the technologies of: fine strain breeding, the culture of crops, prevention of pest and livestock epidemic, amelioration of  the breed of livestock and its rearing, improvement of farm tools and etc,  while Nongye jishu gaizhao includes mechanization, amelioration of soil, water control, farmland capital construction, adoption of improved breed, fertilizer, farm chemical and other modern technologies. The two are sometimes inevitably entangled with each other in this paper but readers  would certainly get no confusion.

Besides, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery and the state-owned farms are generally not included in the scope of this paper.

（1） The Pre-Third Plenum period （三中全会以前）

The PRC has persistently given priority to the agro-technological transformation in its agricultural policy. A rough chronological event-data statistics (see Table 1 and Figure 2 ) illustrates that from 1949 to1984, the percentage of the agro-technological transformation element in the overall PRC's agricultural policy (the rest part consists of agro-managerial and agro-structural elements) has fixed in a range between 32% to 47%. And the average percentage of the agro-technological extension sub-element within the transformation element in the period is 30% This suggests the PRC has made an unremitting and almost uniform effort in promoting diffusion of agro-technological innovation. The1967-1969 downfall of the curve (see Figure 2 ) shows that only at the situation of a governmental paralysis that the transformation effort would decline. Even the revisionist conduct of  agriculture in the Big Leap Forward (1958), and the economic crisis during the Three Hardship Years (1959-196 /三年困难时期) could not undermine the activity of the administrative supply.

The Brownian market-&-infrastructure perspective conceptualizes diffusion as a process involving three activities. The initial activity is the establishment of diffusion agents (or outlets ). The second activity is the implementation of the adoption-induced strategies used by the agents. The third activity is adoption of the innovation. This paper is going to examine the structural aspect of the PRC ' s agro-technological extension system. So by definition, it deals with the first activity of the Brownian trilogy. The  structural aspect involves the establishment of the extension outlets i.e. the operational carriers through which the expected items are distributed to the population at large. The functional aspect concerns the strategies adopted by the outlets i.e. the operational procedures to induce adoption among the population in their service areas. Because time is limited,  the  functional aspect is beyond the present discussion

The PRC's agro-technological extension system during this period may be characterized as a system with a centralized decision-making structure. A single propagator i.e. the state with its hierarchical institutions in question at various levels, almost exclusively determines the structural and functional aspects of the extension.

In terms of the component outlets of the system, three categories could be discerned within the system. The first category is the governmental institutions in charge of or related to agricultural affairs at various levels, Agro-technological extension affairs constitute an organic part of  their  routine work. The core of this category, naturally, is the governmental offices and agents of agriculture at all levels the then format of which is illustrated in Figure 3:

Figure 3

The Ministry of Agriculture under the State Council (中央农业部）

↓↑

Departments of agriculture under provincial government （省农业厅）

↓↑

Bureau of agriculture under each prefectural government (地区农业局)

↓↑

Bureau of agriculture under each county government (县农业局）

↓↑

Agents of production brigades (生产大队）

↓↑

Agents of production teams（生产队）

The State Science and Technology Commission under  the  State  Council  and its subordinates at provincial ,  prefectural  and  county  levels are among others the departments most related to the extension affairs.

Since the PRC's political system is a dual system as Doak Barnett has already described , this category actually involves the correspondent party committees ranging from the CCP Poliburo to basic branches.

As a complete and integrated network, this category took shape around the mid-1950s. The general governmental system  was in the wake of the  Land Reform (1950-1952) , and the differentiation of agricultural and county levels was initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture in the late 1954. Since then, the basic framework of this category has remained essentially  unchanged.

In the PRC's case, the government's role in agro-technological extension goes much further than simply as a regulator, initiator or supporter. It simply acts as authoritative decision-maker and process organizer. That the government's dominant participation in the extension alongside with the traditional outlets is evident enough. As early as in March 1951 , the People' s Daily editorialized it clear ," Party cadres and the people's governments at various levels should place  the  large-scale  agro-technological  extension work on the order of the day." A speech made by the Minister of Finance Deng Zihui ( 邓 子 恢 ) in 1959 stated, "Both the Party, governmental leaders and the administrative departments of agriculture at various levels on the one hand, and the agro-scientific research institutes, colleges of agriculture and agro-scientific workers of the whole country on the other,  should carry out  the extension work.” In short, from the very beginning of the PRC, the extension work has been brought into the "Party's rural work" package.

The second category of the component outlets is the academic institutions which in its turn is mainly composed of research institutes and colleges of agriculture. In the immediate years after the Liberation , the congenital poor agro - research institutes left by the Republican  government  were considerably   strengthened. In the mid-1950s, each of the six grand regions

[Dongbei (东北) , Huabe（i  华北）, Huadong（华东）, Huanan （华南）, Xibei（西北）, and Xinan（西南）saw the establishment of its own headquarter-like, regional research institute of agriculture. This was followed by sporadic provincial and prefectural institutes. In 1957, the headquarter of the system,  the Academia Sinica of Agriculture was founded in Beijing on  the basis of   the former regional Huabei agro-research institute. Since 1958, some  provincial institutes and experimental stations further expanded to academies. Up until 1980, the agro-research institutes above county levels of the whole country amounts to    607 with more than 20 thousand research personnel. And among the total 2000 or so counties of the whole country, there were 1765 subordinating-to–county agro-research institutes or stations with more than 10 thousand personnel, leaving only 12% counties unequipped . The network of this category took shape in the late 1950s. According to the first president of the Academia Ding Ying(丁颖）, towards the end of 1959, the Academia had set up 34 national institutes , 157 provincial , 190 prefectural , and 771 county institutes , and 7690 communal agents. "A nationwide agro-scientific research network had basically established ."  During the Cultural Revolution it experienced a serious set back. Quite a good deal of the institutes were either rescinded or transferred to lower levels and the research staff dispersed. However, it restored quickly and undertook a steady development since the late 1970s.

In the early 1980s, there were 61 colleges and 376  secondary schools   of agriculture in the whole country. Both are dichotomized into the subordinating-to-province or prefecture categories.

In addition, the State Studio of Science Education and the Publishing House of Agriculture are also the leading agents in releasing the know-how concerning the extension.

Although most of the academic institutions mainly engage in research and teaching, yet it goes without saying that they also undertook the extension work, just as other countries' counterparts do. For example, in 1958, the state Academia Sinica of Agriculture set up 230 field-research and extension bases all over the country through its vast network. Documents and photos suggesting this kind of involvement could be easily found in the Chinese sources.

The third category of the component outlets is the professional institutions. This usually refers to: first, the agro-technological extension stations and agents at county and communal levels. Usually they are different from the agro-research institutes at the same levels, but in some cases they mingled together , which is described as "one group of members , two agent signs". Secondly, the mass organization organized among the peasants which are termed grass-root extension agents. They are different from all other aforementioned institutions in that those are institutions run by the state with their personnel in the establishment lists and paid by the state, while they are by definition just folk associations the members of which earn their livings through the work-point system as other communal   members. However, like all other mass organizations in the PRC, they are subordinating to and state-initiated-&-guided folk organizations, constitute the  terminal  or tip-outlet of the party. This category, with its state-run stations and state-initiated of the whole extension service within which the upper governmental and academic institutions have their shares It is the confluence of the three extension outlet's output.

Leslie T.C.Kuo and Benedit Stavis trace the beginning of the professional agro-technological extension service in Communist China back to the early 1950s. In Kuo' s opinion, the first stations were set up in 1951 in Manchuria. This timing seems to be accepted by many Western scholars. Yet in effect ,  the original establishment of the extension agent occurred much  earlier. During the Nanniwan Massive Production Campaign (南泥湾大生产运动) around 1944 in Yanan area, the Yanan Natural Science Academy actually acted as a general extension agent. It had done quite a good deal of extension service on the culture of crops ,wate-flowed seeding, amelioration of varieties and traditional veterinary medicine, sugar refinement and etc. In course of  time , the extension service spread to other base areas, among them the largest Huabei base area did an intension work ahead of others. The base area government successfully convinced the masses that drought could not be relived by begging rain fro the Dragon King, the locust was not a godly worm, and patiently taught them to fight natural calamities. Improved varieties of wheat , cotton, rice and sweet potato were widely propagated. The achievements were so beneficial to the masses that it  was  reported  the masses were full of happy astonishment and deep gratitude, saying "the government deserves enshrined in the temple”. So in the wake of the Sino-Japanese War, there had been already 29 experimental or  breeding farms, 162 extension stations, and l veterinarian  brigade in the liberated area of Huabei. Each prefectural office of Huabei area had its extension teams, veterinarian and breeding stations locally distributed.

On the other hand, many Huabei villages had organized the grassroots extension groups：Jishu yanjiu hui (技术研究会/ the association of agro - technological research). A People's Daily editorial note of 1951 anticipating a report on how the Jishu yanjiu hui is a type of organizations aiming at improving agro-technology initiated great development in Huabei held in the early 1951, the editorial note continues "it has emphatically pointed out , in order to exchange experiences of the masses and to promote the initiative of the masses, it is imperative to develop such agro-technological associations."

Another illustrative event is the large-scale agricultural  exhibition held in January 1951 in Shanghai, which suggests there must have set up some extension stations in Huadong base area even before the Liberation .

So when the PRC set up in the late 1949 , it could hardly be regarded as unfamiliar with agro-technological extension. More stations and associations widely spread to other newly-liberated areas among which Dongbei might  rank the first.

In this pre-cooperative period, while the supply side is designed and organized in a typical administrative pattern, the demand side was obviously still remaining an entrepreneurial nature. In the early 1950s, suggestions concerning the entrepreneurialization of the extension station were raised on several occasions, but finally they were ended up with nothing definite.

By early 1953, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a directive  that claimed "it has been decided that from 1953 on , the agro-technological guidance stations are to be built  nationwide in a   being-well-led, planned   and staged way". Each county is supposed to have at least one station.  In April 1955, another directive was issued. It called for that "Those existing stations should be actively developed in accordance with indigenous conditions. It is required that up until 1957 basically each district(an administrative unite lower than county—the author notes)should have one extension station. They are subordinating to the bureau of agriculture of the location county"

The 1955 directive stipulates the tasks for the agro-technological xtension station as follows:

A.To extend new farming tools and pass on their operational and repai-ring techniques.

B.To extend improved varieties, to give guidance to the peasants in an effort to improve their technologies in plant cultivation seed selection and reservation, manure collection and spread, irrigation and drainage, water and soil control and reservation, prevention and control of plant disease and elimination of pest, etc..

C.To guide the peasants to improve livestock breeding, to promote the work of domestic fowl breeding and its epidemic prevention.

D.To propagandize the policy of cooperation and mutual-aid in agricultural production, to help the agricultural producer' s cooperatives improve their management and administration, and to give guidance to their accounting.

E.To train technological backbones, and to help the peasants set up  their own technological associations , and to give guidance to their activities.

F.To pay attention to the collection and sort outing of the distinguished experience in increasing production made by the indigenous peasants, report them to the agricultural office and the experimental station of the county for further study.

A People' s Daily editorial of December 1962 summarized the tasks of

then extension stations as: first, to extend modern agricultural science and technology in a planned way; secondly, to sum up and propagate the experiences in increasing production made by the peasants.

Interests in strengthening the extension stations since 1955 is further suggested by the governmental decisions and the People ' s Daly editorials, with roughly three high tides in 1962, 1972 and 1977 respectively. The grass-root research associations Jishu Yan jiu hui were gradually transformed into the so called scientific-experimental group during the cooperative period (1953-1958). Administrative pattern intruded. But before we further explore the intrusion , let's supplement our description of the extension station

Just as we have stated several paragraphs before, the aforementioned extension station is of ageneral nature. Alongside with it in rural China, there are four or five kinds of specialized agents such as seed company, plant protection station, veterinary station, improved variety farm and soi-&-fertilizer station. Table 2 and 3 would give readers some information about the evolution. and distribution of the general and specialized extension stations An illustration on the improved-seed extension system of China will be presented in the next section.

During the communal period(1958-1978), a more established field extension network i.e. the so called Si ji nong ke wang（四级农科网 / the four-tiered agro-scientific network) had been formed on the basis of the former less uniform folk associations. The first tier is the county agro-research institute; the second is the communal agro-research station or agent; the thir , the brigade （生产大队）experimental group; the fourth, the team sub-group. It was stipulated that the membership of these agents at four levels should consist of ordinary commune members—usually veteran peasants, returned educated youths, and agro-technicians and cadres, following the so called three

-in-one  combination  line （三结合）set forth  by  the  Party  which  has

implications not necessarily limited to pure technological scope. This system had lasted 20 years before the Third Plenum in rural China. It is now not clear why the county or communal extension stations were not assigned a role in this system, which is now being criticized as“each does things in his own way     (各自为政）. ”

This four-tiered system is a symbol of the totalitarian socialist transformation in the extension field alongside with other agrarian fields. The consequence of this sub-transformation, though probably unintended, is that the orthodox entrepreneurial adopter has been transformed into an unprecedented administrative adopter.  Documentary  materials  disclosing such remolding could be hardly found until the post-Third Plenum era throws light upon this fantastic past.

（2） The Post-Third Plenum period（三中全会以后）

Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CCP help in December 1979, the agrarian  relations of production has  been essentially altered. The responsibility system has been widely adopted. Productive initiative of the producers is thus greatly aroused. In order to promote productivity it is widely reported that they felt imperative to learn and apply modern agro-technology

In July 1981, the People 's Daily editorialized on the tortuous course of

the agro-technological development in China as follows:

Maxim-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought hold that only if one feels a new idea , doctrine or science is closely related to his own life and fate, he would become interested in it and in pursuit of it , turning it into a part of his own life. The hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants have been celebrated in the world for their industrious and ingenious qualities...But in the old China , they were bound up by the backward relations of production and the evil exploitive system, toiling all the year round without enough to eat and wear. Being educated, learning and applying science were simply out of question. Rights and prerequisites for them to do so only become true after the new China is established and the vast peasantry become master of land. During the 1950s and the early 1960s the extension of modern agro-technology in the country boomed for a time, obtaining quite a good deal of achievements. However being short of experience during the same period, mistakes  such  as  formalism, giving arbitrary and impracticable directions, and uniformism ( 一刀切）were committed . During the Cultural Revolution, under the influence of the mistaken left deviation, agriculture of the whole country of such a large size was conducted in accordance with a single paradigm. Agro-research, education and extension were undermined severely...Modern agro-technologies propagated in many places were not widely adopted . The reason for the stagnating is the peasantry have no autonomy in their agro-production and management, the egalitarianism characterized by "large in size and collective in nature ( 一大二公）”aroused no initiative and enthusiasm in applying science among the peasants.

To supplement the People ' s Daily's illustration, evidences available

from other sources are quoted here:

According to a report, the existing extension system is weak and inefficient. The total extension personnel only amount to 600000. In average, each commune or xiang has only one extension worker. Among them, one half are secondary school graduates, only 10% are college graduates. Moreover, most  of   the extension stations are poorly equipped. Ever since the liberation and   up to 1978, China has achieved more than 3000 agro-technological innovations, yet only less than 30% of them have been adopted. In those advanced countries, within their  increase of agricultural productivity, 60%-80% are contributed   by agro-science-&-technology, but the number in China just amounts 30%-40%.

Another exposure is a story selected among many others similar. The natural conditions of Jiashan county in Anhui province (安徽省嘉山县) are well suitable for hybrid-rice growth. The trial and the first stage of intensive adoption had proved successful. The government provided allowances to the hybrid-rice breeding. Agro-technicians were also available. Yet due to the aforementioned non-autonomy   and egalitarianism, the peasants manifested   no interest in it refusing it even when the seed agent delivered it to the doorsteps of their houses. Moreover, the production team had to subsidy the members of the experimental groups. So, the extension was not at all beneficial,

on the contrary, it had become a burden to the peasants. The experimental group was titled "home for the aged " by the peasants. Finally, when reluctantly accepted it under administrative directive , they just did not strictly follow the required technological measures. The result of output- increase thus was hardly convincing , which in turn rose the suspicion against the hybrid-rice among the peasants. The story gave us a vivid illustration on the syndrome of administrative adoption.

After the adoption of the responsibility system, the above-quoted People's

Daily editorial continues,“things have been changed... the responsibility system has combined the right, responsibility and benefit of the peasants together. They become active and initiative in pursuit of various kinds of measures capable of increasing production, really aware the application of science and technology could increase the output and the income, therefore urgent for learning and applying science.”It is reported that "among the peasants a great mass fervor in learning and applying science is being on the upgrade”, they“listen to the lecture on science and technology with fascination , just like they listen to the opera”,“they exchange grain for improved varieties from relatives and friends, consult the professionals of agro-science and technology on their own accord, add more farming tools to their possessions one after another,buy the books of science and technology”. “Science and technology is unprecedentedly well-liked and much sought after in the countryside”, agro-technicians are always enclosed by the consultants wherever they appear in their work circuits. The aforementioned Jiashan peasants' attitude towards the hybrid-rice dramatically changed. Many  peasants made special trips to the county town to buy the seed. The acreage under the hybrid-rice rapidly expanded from the previous several thousands of mu (亩) to the present 40 thousands of mu. Wan Li（万里）, the vice premier, once said in a conference on agro-technological extension of January 1981, agro-technicians are now "blocked outdoor and waited in door by the consultants”,“Women    attend    the lecture holding children in the arms.”

In the past, “whatsoever weather forecast, improved varieties, or scientific farming, were not cared by the peasants, they just start working as the team leader blows the whistle, for whether they work better or worse , rewards will be the same. “The present situation is totally different. This is the most lovely and heartening situation in the countryside. In deed, in retrospect, the long-lasting underdevelopment of China's diffusion of modern agro-technology ever since the first decade of this century in particular, and its agriculture in general, one could hardly remain indifferent towards this significant social change in a vast rural area with 800 million  people. The hinge of this change is the entrepreneurialization of the extension which will be further analyzed in the last part of this article. Now we return to the resent structural development of the professional institutions.

Facing this new situation, it goes without  saying  that  agro-technological extension is again given a high priority by the government. As the Summary of the Conference on the Nationwide Rural Work issued in December 1981 states, "It is imperative to restore and consummate the agro-technological extension institutes at various levels and to strengthen their technological capabilities. The focal point of this work is to well run the extension stations at county level, combining the agro-technological extension, plant protection, soil amelioration, fertilizer spread and etc. together progressively, putting into practice the policy of unified leadership and division-cooperation of labor(统一领导，分工协作）. In March 1981, a circular concerning the strengthening of the extension work all over the country was issued jointly by the state Agriculture Commission the state Science and Technology Commission and other institutions.

Since the early 1980s, the processional extension system has gone through significant changes. First of all, the former extension station, four tiered network and governmental institutions are integrated into one.  Separated offices specially handling the extension affairs were uniformly set up in the governmental departments of agriculture at above-county levels ranging from the central ministry through the provincial to the prefectural bureau. The state General Agro-technological Extension Station under the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fishery was founded in 1982. The intermediate section of this system is consisted of the county and xiang extension stations. The grass root organizations as will be illustrated later changed greatly. In short, the functional differentiation concerning the extension has thus been unprecedentedly strengthened. This is a Weberrian legal-bureaucratic movement in the administrative supply.

The improved variety supply system has also been undertaken a vital reform. The breeding and extension of improved variety since the liberation had gone through three stages before.    At the initial period of the PRC, due  to the then scattered-managerial and small-scale farming and the backwardness of the infrastructure, the breeding had to be done by each household.  Since  the cooperative and the commune, the policy is "the production team self-select, self-breed, self reserve and self-use the seed, supplemented with adjustment by the state”. The third stage witnessed the upgrade of the breeding agent from the team to the commune. After the Cultural Revolution, the Si hau yi gong system (四化一供/the four-lizations and one provision) has been promoted The four-lizations refers to the specialization of the seed breeding, the mechanization of the seed process, the standardization of the quality, the regionalization of the various varieties, while the one provision refers to unified provision of the seed by the county. The specialization of the seed breeding involves the building of special seed breeding base breeding the improved varieties in accordance with the required technological operation sequence The mechanization is to make the seed produced by seed-processing machines. The standardization requires the seed provided for production should subject to examination and should be accord with the standard prescribed by the state The regionalization refers to breeding the varieties in accordance of the required natural regions. The one provision defines that the seed should be bred, processed and supplied by the county seed company in a unified and planned way. In 1979, the first 12 counties selected for the experiment completed the seed bases building and produced for the experiment completed the seed bases building and produced 64000 jin ( 斤 ) of improved varieties. The net result of these standardized varieties in increasing the production is as high as 10%. Towards the end of the same year , more than 100 counties had build up the seed breeding bases.

Another change is being taken. Lu Liangxu（卢良恕）, the present president of the Academia, concludes in an article of February 1984, it is admitted that neither the agro-research nor the agro-education institutions could replace the professional technological extension institutions which have been relatively weaker than the two academic systems. So the professional system is to be strengthened and consummated with the joint effort of the two academic institutions. Another combination is to make the agro-research institute, the general extension station, the seed station, the soil and fertilizer station, plant protection station, agro-technological training school and etc. united, forming a synthetic agro-technological extension center. Its task is defined as to expand the experiment, demonstration, extension and training work.

So from 1979 on, the experimental building of the synthetic agro-technological center has been under way. They are much better financed and equipped. Up to 1982, the number of such new centers reached 150 all over the country. This massive reorganization of the extension system is now going on steadily.

A great change is also taken place at the grass-root level, but with a qualitative change nature. The administrative experimental groups at brigade and team levels diminished as the communal system  disintegrated.  The supply chain now terminates at the xiang extension station, although as we have mentioned the upper structure of the line has been strengthened and reorganized. Yet the termination does not necessarily terminate the tip-outlet of the extension service which now reassumes its original entrepreneurial nature.

The now shape-taking agro-technological extension system in rural China could be illustrated as follows:

A.At above county level, there are separate governmental institutes and offices of agro-technological extension and the abovementioned academic institutions at national, provincial and prefectural levels.

B.At county level, there is the agro-technological extension service center. It merges the former separate agro-technological extension station, agro-research institute, soil and fertilizer station, plant prevention and quarantine station, pest forecast station, agro-technological training school, experimental or demonstration farm and etc. together and reorganize on the basis of them. Some counties further include the veterinary station and aquatic company in it. The service center is of a bureau status equal to the county agricultural bureau. It sets up various professional  companies  offering  various agro-technological services, puts into effect the policy of unified leadership and division-cooperation of labor, combines the experiment, demonstration and extension together.

C.At natural or administrative district level (自然区或行政区), the sector service station is set up.

D.At xiang level, there is the extension service company subordinating to the county service center. It is staffed by both state cadres of agro-technology and hired peasant technicians. The service company offers extension service in an entrepreneurial way, and itself will gradually change its status from a non-profit institute to a profit-oriented enterprise.

E.At administrative chun level (行政村),either a service station is set up or peasant technicians are installed. They are financed or subsidized by the collective preserve (集体提留) or the rural industry. Extension service is offered in a paid and responsible for its profits or losses way (有偿服务，自负盈亏)。

F.At under-chun level, the demonstrative households of agro-technology is set up. In passing on new technologies, the agro-technicians should give priority to them, making them play the leading role in demonstration and guidance.

For example, Ningdu county of Jiangxi province (江西省宁都县) amalgamates 46 agro-technological cadres who in the past separately belonged to different institutions together to form the service center directly subordinating to the county government. It sub-sets four service companies, i.e. the agro-technological company, the plant protection company, and the husbandry & aquatic company, four improved variety breeding and trial farms, and a training school. All over the county, 26 xiangs and 340 chuns have set up the service companies or service teams. There are all together 3300 demonstrative households. All service agents work under the guidance of the county service center.

G.At grass-root level, an entirely new array of entrepreneurial agents of the extension appears. First, there are service agents organized by the collective economic organizations or joint households such as specialized service agents on irrigation, young plant nursing in greenhouse, plant protection, farm machinery tillage, silkworm raising, apiculture, flowers and trees, domestic animal and fowl, and aquatic. Secondly, individual specialized-household of agro-technological service emerged. Thirdly, specialized producer’s associations also appeared such as milk cow association, watermelon association, apiculture association and etc.. Members of the association exchange experience and information, offer advises, print and distribute materials. Some associations even undertake collective sales.

This newly shape-taking extension system“takes the state’s agro-technological extension institutions as its principal part, the county agro-technological extension center as its axis, the xiang synthetic service company of agro-technological extension as its basis.”It is run jointly by the state, the collective, the concerted peasants households (联户农民), and the individual household specialized in agro-technological extension service. The tip-outlet of this service system also has four tiers.：First, the county center; secondly, the district and xiang companies, thirdly, the chun peasant agro-technicians; fourthly, the demonstrative households. The second and the third tiers are entrepreneurialzed suppliers now. They provide extension services mainly by means of the newly emerged technological contract system. The fourth tier, as all other former commune members are no longer administrative adopters now, they are, in Rogers’ term, earlier adopters, but institutionalized (they are chosen by the technicians and should be subjected to the consensus of the masses).

The operational procedure of the new system, in Brown’s term, the strategies implemented by the outlets should be briefly introduced at this point in order to make our understanding of the system more penetrating:

A.To set up demonstrative field to which synthetic agro-technologies are applied, and conduct the professional technicians in upfolding multi-disciplinary co-op services.

B.To upfold the agro-technological contracting. This system is an innovation corresponding to the responsibility system of agro-production. By means of entrepreneurial contract, it combines the responsibilities, rights and benefits (责、权、利) of both agro-technicians on the one hand and production units and the peasants on the other together, and combines the technological effect and the economic interests of the masses together. It gets rid of the defect of “eat in the canteen the same as everyone else: (吃大锅饭)”in the previous extension work, and has aroused the initiatives of both the technicians in extending and the peasants in applying agro-technologies. It consists of three major approaches: First, Lian chan jishu chengbao (联产技术承包): The contractor is responsible to give synthetic guidance in the whole course of the crops’growth. The criterion of yield is fixed beforehand. The output in excess of the criterion is shared by the contractor in accordance with the prescribed percentage; if the yield fails to come up to the criterion, the contractor is to compensate according to the stipulation. Secondly, Ding chan ding chou jishu chengbao ( 定产定酬技术承包):In this approach, the remuneration amount is fixed beforehand. If the criterion is not met, except in the case of serious faults of technological guidance, no compensation is required. Thirdly, Lian xiao lian zhi jushu chengbao (联效联质技术承包). This approach take into account not only the yield, but also the quality. Whatever approaches the system may take, the contracting practice is to abide by the principle of“mutual voluntariness, paid service, reasonable remuneration and compensation”.

C.To uphold multi-tiered and multi-formed agro-technological training.

D.To upfold intensive dissemination of agro-science and technology through various approaches. For example, wired broadcast, lectures and reports; materials printing and distribution, agro-technological newspaper publishing and subscription, blackboard newspaper and wall post, technological advertisement; showing of scientific education films and slides, convening on-the –spot meetings, visiting demonstrative fields; instituting technological; advice centers; sponsoring agro-technicians' “scientific dissemination country fair ( 科 技 集 市 )'' where advice is available, agro-technological achievements are exhibited; and so forth.

E.While taking the extension service as principal job, the sale of materials and equipments required in the extension could also be brought into as auxiliary business concurrently.

In sum,the new shape-taking system of agro-technological extension in contem porary China is characterized by :

A.The adoption side, including the adopter and the adopting, is basically entrepreneurialized as a certain effect of the responsibility system. Yet, it is not as laissez-faire as Rogersian adoption.

B.The supplier is on the one hand further legal-bureaucratized at its upper level, and on the other hand essentially enterpreneurializ1ed at its vast lower part.

C.The supplying mixes administrative approach with entrepreneurial approach together with the latter characterized by the agro-technological contract system.

 

4. Concluding observations

This paper has examined the structural development of China's agro-technological extension. It is admitted that L. A. Brown's view ''it is though these agencies that the innovation is made available to potential adopters, and the timing and order of their establishment sets the broad outlines of the diffusion pattern.” is extremely true for a totalitarian-socialist China where agro-technological innovation   would be   hardly available if   the extension system was not, just as in the periods of the late Qing and the Republic, established and consummated by a powerful hence protective state. The study of the supply side thus is of great importance in understanding China's agro-technological extension.

Two aspects of the structural development; its spatial pattern and attributive pattern are examined in this last sector.

In a capitalist setting, the optimal pattern of diffusion under a centralized decision-making  structure is the various markets would be ranked according to their expected profitability and then sequentially exploited, the most profitable earlier and the less later, if at all. The critical factors in this processare capital availability, sales potential, logistics and the elasticity of a agency profitability with regard to sales potential.

In a totalitarian-socialist setting of China, the spatial pattern is greatly different. The extension stations are uniformly established according to the administrative division, as the aforementioned 1953 and 1955 directives clearly states: “each county or each district" should set up one or more stations. However, at the initial stage, according to the then governmental decisions, priority is given to the locations which have one or more features depicted as follows: A. better accessibility and transport facility. B. a more developed economy. C. early liberated areas. D. the local leadership is sound.

E. the co-op and mutual-aid basis is better. So the critical factors in its process is not only market, rather, productivity and infrastructure oriented, but also politics  and  administration  oriented.  The  government  even  gave directives asking the service priority should be delivered upon the co-op’s and the mutual aid groups. The number of the extension stations to be established in certain stage or time is also decided by the government.

L.A. Brown has already touched upon the nonprofit organization and the governmental other than entrepreneurial spatial pattern, but what makes different here is the latter’s conscious political motivations. The large-scale administrative supply and adoption constitute an unprecedented attributive rather than configurative pattern that western scholars have seldom made thorough study.In the administrative adoption, the relationship between the supplier and the adopter has become a relationship between the leading and the led, or the ruling and the ruled. In this situation, adoption would occur on the basis of not only the intellectual innovativeness but also the political obedientiveness of the adopters’. The collective adoption replaces the orthodox individual or household adoption. Adopter’s distribution graphic would change measure unit on X axis from individual farmers to collective teams. The five stages in the adoption process: awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption are still correct, but they are no longer stages of a pure entrepreneurial nature. The first two stages may take place individually, while the next critical three may not. The supplier, be he a production team leader or an agro-technological cadre, is doomed to be dominant in the evaluation, trial, and adoption stages. Administrative awareness, administrative evaluation, administrative trial, and administrative adoption are discernible. The“demonstrative field”(样板田) planted by the communal cadres during the 1960-1970s is a most typical example. It was titled an critical working method of the rural cadres. The autonomy of the ultimate potential adopter is deprived.

On the other hand, entrepreneurial incentive brought out by the adoption greatly reduced. If the collective entity feels the advantage of the innovation outweigh the disadvantage, it doe not necessarily mean the individual peasants would also feel so. That the egalitarianism of the communal income distribution system greatly infringed the productive initiative of the peasants has been proved. Agriculture is quite different from industry, the former is suitable to household farming, since the working objects and conditions can hardly be standardized, while the latter is suitable to or, rather, even required of collective manufacturing. So the principle of“more pain, more gain” should be practiced differently according to the different nature of agriculture and industry. Administrative adoption may be feasible within an entrepreneurial factory or firm, but surely not within agricultural production. Administrative adoption in contemporary China has been proved a total fault.

Therefore, it has been thoroughly dropped alongside with the communal system. However, it is not the case of the administrative supply.

The administrative supply could be further broken down into the administrative establishment and the administrative service vis-à-vis the entrepreneurial counterparts.

 

The latest entrepreneurialization of the previous overwhelmingly administrative supply just mainly occurred at both the bottoms of the establishment and the serviceas depicted in section III. The entrepreneurialization of the bottom of the system counts for much for activating the whole system. However, this process does not extend up forward to the upper part of the system and seems not necessary to do so in the future. The administrative establishment and service promote a uniform extension all over the country, leaving no spatial gaps, which the profitability-oriented, absolute entrepreneurial establishment and service would certainly do.

In the last two years, the government has implemented a policy of Ke ji fu pin (科技扶贫/ to assist the poor with science and technology). The Scientific Association of China has selected the Lvliang mountain area (吕梁山区) as the focal location for its Ke ji fu pin service, and other 15 poor counties of various types as the joint experimental points of Ke ji fu pin shared with the Ministry of Civil Administration and the state Civil Administration Commission. Local scientific associations at various levels widely upheld the activity of Ke ji fu pin in a concerted way. For example, Guizhou province(贵州省)founded a special“Guizhou Provincial Troupe of Ke ji fu pin” which was headed by a deputy governor, managed by the provincial scientific association, financed by the provincial government with 96 million Yuan. In last year, 7000 scientific and technological personnel were sent up to the mountains and down to the countryside in the whole province to uphold a large-scale movement of Ke ji fu pin.

According to some dependency theorists of Latin America such as Dos Santos, in order to get rid of the state of dependency upon the central developed countries, a centralized government in the periphery country which is capable of protecting its national economy and penetrating its promotive policy, is in great request, whether it is a fascist or socialist government.

This point of view, joined by the bitter experience of the Late Qing and the Republic, throws light to the present discussion. It might well be necessary for China, which is a poor developing country, to remain its agro-technological extension system not entirely entrepreneurialized. Just as a weak boxer, he needs to mobilize his every piece of muscle to win the competition. The organic whole is then taken superior than the organic part.

China may have so far found the optimal structure for its agro-technological extension ever since the first decade of this century.  That is, a semi-administrative-plus semi-entrepreneurial supplier gearing with an entrepreneurial adopter. Whether this pattern is universally favorable (spatially and temporally) to the developing countries or not, or to what degree this is so, is an interesting puzzle waiting for further tests.