Guo Xiaoming, Gao Jie, and Zhang Yaowen: Realistic Needs, Advancement Paths, and Institutional Guarantees for Developing the New Type of Rural Collective Economy
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee [1] clarified the strategic tasks for accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas and solidly promoting the comprehensive revitalization of the countryside during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. It proposed to "persist in taking the resolution of the 'three rural issues' [2] as the top priority of the Party's entire work" and to "accelerate the construction of a strong agricultural country." At this critical stage of accelerating agricultural and rural modernization, further deepening the understanding of the strategic significance of developing the new-type rural collective economy, systematically exploring its development paths, and constructing corresponding guarantee mechanisms are of great strategic importance for shoring up weak links in agricultural and rural development and consolidating the foundations of a strong agricultural country.
1
Developing the new-type rural collective economy profoundly aligns with the inherent requirements of Chinese-path modernization, represents the specific implementation of the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee in the agricultural and rural fields, and serves as a strategic choice for achieving the goals of agricultural and rural modernization.
Developing the new-type rural collective economy is an important support for ensuring food security and the supply of major agricultural products, as well as maintaining national strategic security. Food security is a "matter of national significance" [3] and an important guarantee for the steady and sustained progress of Chinese-path modernization. Compared to scattered household operations, the new-type rural collective economy, as the owner of collective resources and assets, possesses natural advantages in integrating rural resources and coordinating the division of labor. It can play an active role in comprehensive land consolidation, agricultural technology promotion, and the provision of socialized services. This enhances comprehensive agricultural production capacity, quality, and efficiency, effectively implementing the strategy of "storing grain in the land and in technology" [4]. It strengthens agriculture's risk resistance, allowing it to function as a development "stabilizer" at critical moments and providing a solid organizational foundation for national food security and self-sufficiency in major agricultural products.
Developing the new-type rural collective economy is the key path to stimulating endogenous rural momentum and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization. As an important carrier for integrating rural resources and cultivating rural industries, the new-type rural collective economy can effectively revitalize large amounts of "dormant" assets, such as idle residential land and vacant rural houses. It can attract capital, technology, talent, and other factors to flow toward the countryside, developing new industries and business forms—such as rural tourism, agricultural product processing, and rural e-commerce—based on local conditions. This provides more local and nearby employment opportunities for farmers and attracts migrant workers to return home for entrepreneurship and employment, alleviating the problem of rural "hollowing out" and injecting sustainable development vitality into the countryside.
Developing the new-type rural collective economy is an urgent necessity for smoothing the flow of factors between urban and rural areas and promoting integrated urban-rural development. As an economic organization with a clear status as a market entity, the new-type rural collective economy can systematically receive urban talent, capital, and technology, effectively breaking through the institutional and mechanistic barriers faced by external resources entering the countryside. At the same time, through intensive and large-scale modern management methods, it transforms rural ecological resources, land assets, and cultural heritage into high-quality supplies that meet the trend of urban consumption upgrading, thereby smoothing the pathways of the urban-rural economic cycle. At the level of urban-rural industrial development, the new-type rural collective economy explores development models such as industrial alliances and "village collectives + industrial parks." This not only promotes the complementary advantages and deep integration of urban and rural industries but also significantly enhances the endogenous momentum of rural development by creating localized jobs and broadening channels for increasing farmers' income, providing a fundamental guarantee for narrowing the urban-rural development gap and accelerating the construction of a new pattern of integrated development for shared urban-rural prosperity.
Developing the new-type rural collective economy is an inevitable requirement for consolidating the Party's foundation for governing in rural areas and advancing the modernization of national governance. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee proposed that "the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity be further advanced." The modernization of rural governance is an important component of the modernization of national governance. By integrating resources and developing industries, the new-type rural collective economy can enhance the economic strength and service capacity of the countryside, enabling it to more effectively organize and serve the masses, thereby increasing the cohesion and influence of village-level organizations. Therefore, the development of the new-type rural collective economy is not only an economic act to promote rural economic development but also an important way to strengthen the political and organizational functions of primary-level rural Party organizations and to improve rural governance.
2
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, China's agricultural and rural modernization has achieved significant accomplishments. Rural reforms have continued to deepen, and the phased tasks of the reform of the rural collective property rights system have been basically completed. Development models and governance mechanisms for the rural collective economy have continued to innovate, achieving substantial progress. However, the new-type rural collective economy still faces dilemmas such as fragmented resources, insufficient cooperation, and singular development paths. To address this, we should base our efforts on reality, focusing on innovating development paths around dimensions such as resource integration, subject cooperation, service expansion, and regional linkage to break through current predicaments and form a systematic, multi-layered development pattern.
Explore diversified resource utilization development paths for integration, coordination, and value realization. New-type rural collective economic organizations should leverage their characteristics of shared resources and shared benefits to realize resource activation and value enhancement through leasing, shareholding, and cooperation. They can integrate resources such as cultivated land, forest land, and grassland that have not been contracted to households, achieving scale operations through unified transfer and cooperative development. They can revitalize agricultural land, orchards, and ponds that are contracted to households but used inefficiently, improving efficiency through re-contracting, leasing, or joint-stock operations. They can activate idle collective construction land and rural housing resources, integrating them into rural industrial development through shareholding cooperation, rental management, and joint development, combined with rural ecological, historical, and cultural characteristics, thereby comprehensively enhancing resource value.
Strengthen multi-subject industrial cooperation development paths for asset management and steady operation. To accelerate agricultural and rural modernization, new-type rural collective economic organizations must achieve the preservation and appreciation of asset value while avoiding operational risks brought by fierce market competition. Therefore, emphasis should be placed on deep cooperation with diverse market subjects to establish efficient asset management and steady operation mechanisms. On one hand, centered on the extension of the agricultural industrial chain, they should integrate fiscal funds and self-owned assets to participate in the construction of facilities for agricultural product processing, storage, logistics, and trading markets through shareholding cooperation, forming industrial chain supporting and cooperative management relationships with new-type operating entities. On the other hand, in conjunction with the development of new industries and business forms, they should utilize agricultural landscapes and rural culture to introduce market subjects for the joint development of new consumption scenarios—such as leisure tourism, ecological health care, and study tours—realizing steady growth of the collective economy through industrial integration.
Expand multi-level service provision development paths for deepened division of labor and optimized functions. By continuously expanding and strengthening service functions, growth in service income with greater comparative advantages and sustainability can be achieved. First, participate in the provision of agricultural production services. New-type rural collective economic organizations can act as intermediaries in agricultural production services and cooperate with market subjects to provide agricultural supplies, technology, and machinery, growing into important providers of socialized agricultural services. Second, participate in the provision of management services. Focus on providing supporting services such as property management, labor dispatch, and conflict mediation for operating entities engaged in agricultural-cultural-tourism industries in the countryside, becoming the main providers of public management services. Third, participate in the provision of public welfare services. Enhance the capacity of new-type rural collective economic organizations to undertake public services such as small-scale rural infrastructure construction and public utility maintenance purchased by the government, achieving multiple goals such as efficient construction and management of rural infrastructure and increased collective income.
Adhere to multi-type village management development paths for holistic advancement and shared interests. To achieve co-construction, co-sharing, and common prosperity, importance must be attached to whole-village management and cross-village cooperation, effectively breaking through the limitations and insufficient development of individual villages. Explore whole-village management models: on the basis of unified planning, taking the rural collective economy as the lead, link with state-owned enterprises and private enterprises to systematically develop idle rural resources and holistically develop high-quality, high-efficiency agriculture and rural industries that benefit the people. Explore multi-village joint operation models: based on clear property rights and standardized benefit distribution, realize various types of cross-village cooperation, exploring deep-level linkages such as shared use of resources, joint revitalization of industries, joint provision of services, and joint construction for governance, integrating resources within a larger area to realize the "strong leading the weak" and common development of new-type rural collective economic organizations. Explore cross-regional linkage models: encourage multiple towns, districts, or counties with complementary resource conditions or high industrial correlation to break through administrative boundary restrictions and develop linkages through "enclaved" development [5] or joint shareholding. Guide new-type rural collective economic organizations in various localities to collaboratively utilize collective resources and assets, as well as assets invested through fiscal funds, on a larger spatial scale, realizing benefit creation and result sharing at a broader level.
3
As the process of agricultural and rural modernization deepens, the original organizational forms and operating mechanisms of the collective economy have found it difficult to adapt to the requirements of market-oriented development. To achieve the preservation and appreciation of collective assets, continuously strengthen endogenous development momentum, and enhance the capacity to lead farmers toward common prosperity, it is necessary to systematically and comprehensively advance reform and innovation at the level of systems and mechanisms, constructing an institutional guarantee system for new-type rural collective economic organizations with clear rights and responsibilities, standardized operations, controllable risks, and reasonable distribution.
Construct operating mechanisms that match the market-oriented development needs of the new-type rural collective economy. Further deepening rural reform and solidly promoting comprehensive rural revitalization, new-type rural collective economic organizations should explore operating mechanisms that meet their development needs and match market-oriented demands. Within the framework of their status as special legal persons [6], new-type rural collective economic organizations should expand their organizational forms through vertical integration and horizontal alliances, forming operating modes such as cross-village joint operations, cross-district joint management, village-enterprise co-construction, and villager alliances, as well as models like "enterprise + collective economy + farmers" and "enterprise + collective economy + cooperatives," further enhancing market adaptability and competitiveness.
Innovate governance mechanisms that match the property rights structure of new-type rural collective economic organizations. New-type rural collective economic organizations bear the basic task of preserving and increasing the value of collective assets and cannot withstand the risk of bankruptcy; meanwhile, most current village collectives in China have a weak development foundation and find it difficult to effectively guard against operational risks. Therefore, new-type rural collective economic organizations need to further optimize based on the modern enterprise system, exploring internal and external governance mechanisms that match their property rights structure. Regarding internal governance, they should fully leverage their natural advantage of being deeply embedded in rural society, integrating political supervision and village reputation into organizational governance to form a governance structure and reputation constraint system consisting of "Party organization + village collective + community." Regarding external governance, while promoting the construction of a market for rural professional managers, they should comprehensively utilize social capital and political assessments to prevent moral hazard, forming a collaborative governance pattern. Through efforts from both internal and external directions, the risk-prevention capacity of new-type rural collective economic organizations can be effectively enhanced.
Establish risk prevention mechanisms that match the contractual characteristics of the new-type rural collective economy. With the diversification of property rights structures and the complexity of management models, new-type rural collective economic organizations may face multiple risks, such as asset loss and market competition. Based on this, it is necessary to explore the construction of a systemic risk prevention mechanism. From the dual dimensions of "self-enforcing contracts" and "external institutional guarantees," a closed-loop prevention system covering the entire process of risk identification, immediate blocking, effective resolution, and reasonable compensation should be formed to ensure the steady operation of the new-type rural collective economy.
Optimize revenue distribution mechanisms that match the goals of new-type rural collective economic organizations. The core of optimizing the revenue distribution mechanism is to construct a composite system that links internal and external factors and balances fairness and efficiency. On one hand, by establishing the primary status of farmers, a composite distribution method based on the membership rights of collective economic organizations and incentivized by factor contributions should be established to coordinate the interests among members and between members and managers. On the other hand, focus should be placed on clarifying and optimizing the relationship between primary distribution [7] and redistribution. While ensuring the current income of members, public welfare and accumulation funds should be set aside to support the new-type rural collective economic organization in providing high-quality rural public services and achieving high-quality development. This effectively coordinates the long-term interests of the new-type rural collective economic organization with the village community and external cooperative subjects, ultimately achieving the organic unity of political, social, and economic goals within the countryside.