How many farmers are there in China?

China's statistics are so confusing that they often don't add up. It's definitely not that the authorities concerned cheat and deliberately lie everywhere. I believe that the statisticians in Beijing are honest, and they have been honest for more than twenty years. Shortly after the reform and opening up, I had a long talk with one of their principals, and I was convinced of this gentleman. After reading the evolution of the figures published by them, we can see that there is progress, but we can't see cheating. This kind of thing can't be hidden from an old man like me. The problem is that in the rapid and complicated evolution of China, accurate data is not easy. I sympathize with the gentlemen who do statistics from the bottom of my heart. If I do it, I don't think I can do it better than them.

Over the years, I think the growth rate of China is actually higher than the government statistics, much higher. In the past, the livelihood of self-employed individuals soared, and the government could not estimate it. Today, when the monthly salary is less than 1600, it is hard to estimate that there are countless odd jobs without tax returns. Perhaps the biggest headache is the floating population. Last year, I wrote "Guangzhou Empty City Plan" and played a joke on my friends in Guangzhou. Online readers are in an uproar and are overjoyed. Guangzhou's per capita income is calculated by registered population, but the city's total output value is supplemented by millions of floating population. Isn't that weird? On the other hand, the growth rate of farmers' per capita income calculated by Beijing has been much lower in recent years. What the hell is going on? It may be because they are based on the registered population of farmers, but in fact, countless farmers have "flowed".

What is the floating population in China? Only God knows. The actual population of Shenzhen now is nearly 40,000, but the registered population is less than half. Recently, I wrote a long English article for Gauss. I said that the floating population in China should be more than one third of the total population, and the probability of being wrong is not high. Last year, I asked my maid in detail how many farmers moved to her hometown in southern Henan. She counted among her relatives and friends, made long-distance calls back to her hometown, and asked questions left and right. The answer she gave me was that there were four left and three left. Gao said last year that he had made a survey in rural areas for a period of time and thought that the peasant population in China only accounted for about 20% of the total population. Zhou Qiren was there, disagreed, and quarreled. They are all genuine experts in China, with strong observation and extraordinary intelligence. They have always seen China's troubles, but they can't become "experts" on the seemingly simple topic of peasant population.

About seven years ago, a major international organization invited me to give a speech in Guangzhou. I mentioned that the population of farmers in China should be reduced to 25% or less of the total population, so that farmers can make a living. Because of these words, some people in the newspaper called me an idiot and said it was basically impossible. Scold me for not reading much. With the development after the Meiji Restoration and the failure of land reform in Taiwan Province Province, the peasant population has dropped rapidly. I think the peasant population in China has a chance to drop even faster. Two years ago, Beijing estimated that the number of farmers accounted for more than 60% of the total population, which was calculated according to the registered population. There are so many floating population, and there are countless odd jobs. I'm afraid it's not easy for God to work out the actual peasant population in China.

Old topic: the marginal output of peasant labor is zero or negative, so the total output will increase when the peasant population decreases! There are countless idiots in economics, but such a stupid theory is well-known and enduring. It is really stupid and stupid.

I also want to point out one thing. Two years ago, China abolished the agricultural tax, which was correct. I am opposed to welfare economy and subsidized agriculture, but I am in favor of abolishing agricultural tax. This is because so many farmers have changed jobs and gone into business, many agricultural lands have been abandoned, agricultural taxes have been abolished, and these abandoned agricultural lands have been cultivated again.

The situation is very good! Think about it, it is inevitable that the cost of agricultural products will rise by hiring professional agricultural workers and introducing machinery, and

This increase reflects the increase in the opportunity cost for farmers to change jobs. I can switch to industry, and if you pay me a salary similar to that of industry, I can stay and farm for you. No cost is not opportunity cost. The cost has gone up, so have the prices of agricultural products. This is the main reason why Beijing recently announced that the prices of agricultural products have risen sharply compared with those of non-agricultural products.

Yes, we can deduce the rising cost of farming from the rising price of agricultural products, and then deduce the rising opportunity cost of farmers from this rising cost, and the cost is equal to income, and income is equal to livelihood. As long as we change some simple figures, we can know that farmers' lives have improved rapidly. This is economics, which should be taught in the first year of undergraduate course, but the rising rookie of economics thinks it is too shallow to understand. It is impossible to know the depth without knowing the depth, because it is impossible to really know the depth without knowing the depth. Unfortunately, this kind of self-deception has a market like Mr. Feng Shui, and it is no wonder that there are countless fools.

Among the recently released inflation figures, I am most concerned about the price of vegetables, which has increased by 18%. I value it so much for two reasons. First, vegetables have not been affected by any plague or the sharp increase in feed costs. Recently, we haven't heard the news that the national vegetable production has been reduced because of bad weather. Secondly, the cultivation of barnyard grass vegetables requires labor-intensive, and each mu is the most labor-intensive among agricultural plants. Therefore, if we only look at one price-not others-to measure the improvement of farmers' lives in China, I choose the price of vegetables.

Am I an agricultural expert? Sort of. 1968, Kiel Johnson, who had a master's degree in agricultural economics and later became Lin Yifu's tutor, read the eighth chapter of the theory of tenant farmers, which was shocking and forced me to teach an agricultural economics course at the University of Chicago. Author: Zhang Wuchang Source: Tencent