Evaluation of China’s Rural Industrial Integration Development Level, Regional Differences, and Development Direction

Abstract

The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China first proposed the strategy of rural revitalization. This proposal constitutes a major strategic deployment for work related to “agriculture, the countryside and farmers” based on China’s national and agricultural conditions and scientific analysis of the new problems faced by agricultural and rural reform in the new era. China’s agricultural development is facing multiple challenges, such as market competition, resource scarcity, environmental constraints, labor exodus, and technological innovation. Additionally, China’s agricultural production is inefficient, farmers’ income is low, and the hollowing out of the countryside has further intensified. To address these challenges, the Party Central Committee made the major decision to implement the rural revitalization strategy, and governments at all levels have introduced a series of policies to support agriculture. However, with the rapid advancement of industrialization and urbanization, the proportion of agricultural output to the total output of the national economy and the proportion of the agricultural labor force to the social labor force are not decreasing, and the idea of seizing the opportunities offered by agriculture is no longer able to solve the current dilemma faced by agricultural and rural development. Expanding the function of agriculture and actively docking with the industry and the service industry are a major strategic initiative for actively adapting to the new normal of economic development. They also represent major innovative thinking to accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development mode. Only when industries are prosperous can rural revitalization have a strong material foundation. To achieve industrial prosperity, industrial integration is the key. Therefore, the realization of rural industrial revitalization must take the path of industrial integration and development. At present, research on rural industrial integration is limited to the local regions, such as provinces and cities, and analysis at the level of national rural industrial integration is lacking. Accelerating the integrated development of rural industries is key to promoting rural revitalization. This paper scientifically establishes an evaluation index system for the level of rural industrial integration development based on five related aspects: society, the economy, resources, facilities, and the environment. Factor analysis is used to reduce the dimensionality of the evaluation index system, and cluster analysis is used to classify the rural industrial integration development level of each province in China into different tiers. The results show that there are obvious regional differences in the levels of rural industrial integration development in China. The provinces and cities with development levels that are higher than average (i.e., scores ranging from 0.291 to 0.915) are concentrated in the eastern coastal areas and inland riverine areas. In contrast, those with development levels that are lower than average (i.e., scores ranging from −0.504 to −0.750) are concentrated in Northern China, the northeastern noncoastal areas and northwestern areas. In addition, provinces can be divided into five development tiers of rural industrial integration. Based on this information, national, provincial, and municipal improvement strategies are proposed to address the differences in development among and the prospects for each province, and to effectively promote the integration of rural industries in China.