Study On The Multifunctionality Of Agriculture

Multifunctionality of agriculture is the substantial base of the old-age sector's social value. The purpose of this study, which is to make a study and explanation of multifunctionality of agriculture, can break away from the ideology of simplicity and intuition about agricultural functions. The study will suffice the development of agriculture and sustainability of economy, society and environment. Sociology of Agriculture has emerged in the West, but in China it is still empty. This study is the first attempt to build China's Sociology of Agriculture. The dissertation is divided into three sections. Firstly, it presents the background, purpose and importance of this whole study. The writer summarizes various researches at home and abroad, puts forward the thought and method of the study, and also presents the innovations mentioned in the dissertation. Then it discusses the notions and theories on the ground of which the research will go on. It points out that the study on multifunctionality has been explored in the West in recent years. The research starts with the concepts of agriculture, function and agricultural function. The theory foundations include the Theory of Structure-function, Marxist historic materialism, the embedded opinions of New Economic Sociology and Sustainable developing theory. Secondly, researches on agriculture's contributions to economy, culture, policy and environment are discussed in the following chapters. The role of agriculture is the base of a nation's economic system from the economic perspective; from a cultural view, culture originated with the emergence of agriculture. Agro-culture is the base of traditional culture; also it is the origin of the national civilization. The social stability and farmers'progress depend on the development of agriculture, so it has the value of policy and development of farmers. From an environmental perspective, agriculture asserts the maintenance of the biodiversity, shapes the landscape and preserves a higher-quality environment. In contrast, the inaptitude of production style has often proved to be detrimental to the environment. The third section is the conclusion of the whole dissertation, which analyses the function's system through dynamic, static and regional dimensions. It makes suggestions optimizing the agriculture's function system. The dissertation points out that the functions system of agriculture consists of economic, cultural, political and environmental aspects, the functions of agriculture are not single, but multiple, not in quiescence, but in diversification. The character of the function's system of agriculture is unequilibrium, dynamic, limitary, and limited flexibility. The nexus of functions is a process from combination to separation and to recombination again. The study analyzes the impacts of the system and different behaviors in regional dimensions; it suggests that agricultural development is based on the nexus of agricultural multiple functions. Based on the multifunction, the agricultural department has become a special one which has surpassed general sectors, the scope of regions and economic value. If we want to maintain these functions, we must build a suitable structure named institution. The institution includes harmonious culture, methods of social development, compensative mechanism and return-feed regulation. The harmonious culture provides a standard to assess things and leads to a scientific life style. The compensation mechanism is the embodiment of justness and justice of society, which is the return from the other value's of agriculture. The return-feed regulation is based on its infirmity, so it features are to support and bestow. Because those are` complex, there must be various approaches to gaining and maintaining these functions. Some of these can be realized through marketing, from development of economy and society; the others depend on protection from the government and society, which include compensations and subsidies. Economic and social methods are of the same significance to the functions of agriculture.