Research on Development of Leisure Agriculture in Beijing Suburb

Ting XIE, Qinfei XU

Beijing Institute of Petrochemical Technology, Beijing 102617, China

In accordance with Beijing Municipal Committee of the CCP’s Suggestions on the 12thFive-year Plan for Beijing Economic and Social Development, urban modern agriculture is the orientation of Beijing agriculture and leisure agriculture is an important part.In August 2011,the 12thFive-year Plan for National Leisure proposed that leisure would become an emerging industry crossing the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, advancing new consumption modes and boosting domestic demand in 2015. With implementation of Integrated development of Beijing,Tianjin,and Hebei,Daxing District advances high-end oriented, integrated and international transformation, as well as construction of Beijing Daxing International Airport, which provides a golden opportunity for leisure agriculture evolvement. These give an ideal chance and policy supports for transformation and updating of Beijing leisure agriculture.

The first picking and sightseeing garden started from the 1980s, and leisure agriculture develops faster in Beijing suburb thereafter driven by domestic demand, supply, and national policy. For example, there were 1 300 picking and sightseeing gardens in Beijing suburb, including 95 municipal sightseeing garden, 207 municipal folk-custom tourism villages,and 9970 municipal folk-custom tourism households, annually receiving 35.11 million visitors and earning 3.04 billion yuan incomes. Hence, Beijing suburb leisure agriculture is booming. Leisure agriculture is a new industry integrating agriculture and tourism characters.In 2012,Daxing District had 112 sightseeing gardens and leisure agriculture created gross revenue of 210 million yuan, dominated by 200 million yuan from sightseeing gardens. In general,leisure agriculture plays a key role in improving agricultural resources allocation, increasing additional value of agriculture, and protecting rural ecoenvironment, and leisure agriculture has become a crucial part of industry structure adjustment of new countryside in Daxing District.

Development Status of Leisure Agriculture in Daxing District

Until the end of 2014, there were 131 large-scale leisure agriculture-oriented industrial parks in Daxing District, and sightseeing gardens dominated by picking provide lots of employment opportunities for farmers. In the context of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration, Beijing eco-leisure agriculture is a comprehensive leisure agriculture integrating production, livelihood and ecology[1]. What’s more, the agricultural industrial parks are undergoing transformation from productiondominated to leisure, ecology and landscape-integrated and floral industry, fruit industry and forestry are changing accordingly. Recently, Daxing District has issued many polices concerning lands, and revenue to attract investments on rural tourism.Besides, Daxing District gives highlights to management on resources,capitals and profits to broaden capital operational channels and create operational modes in order to increases stakeholders’ benefits. These policies do attract powerful enterprises’ investments and business entities are changing from farm households-dominated to multiple investment bodies,covering Lihua Village, Beijing Rongqing Eco-agriculture Co. Ltd.,Ludu Manor, Haokaixin Farmstead,Junmingcheng Agricultural Sci-Park,and Haitang Manor. Besides, foreign investors are able to obtain the right to use of rural tourism resources in the form of capital input, but governments or the collectives would transfer the right of management of both rural tourism resources and the brand after a period of time.

Analysis on Leisure Agricultural Parks of Daxing District

The research conducted analysis on characteristics of leisure agricultural parks of Daxing District by field survey and questionnaire survey.

Operation scale

Park receiving capacity tends to be volatile. For example, in general,parks can admit a minimum daily attendance of 100 visitors and a maximum of around 3 000,with an average of 675 visitors. Annual receiving capacities are different upon parks, with a minimum annual attendance of 300 visitors and a maximum of 100 000.Furthermore,accommodation services differ significantly, and most parks are not equipped with accommodation facilities, or it is believed it is not necessary to provide the service based on status quo.Still,the maximum accommodation capacity includes 150 beds for parks providing accommodation,with an average of 18 beds. As for catering service, most parks are not equipped with, because fewer visitors choose to have meals there. The parks available for meeting reception are also limited. Generally speaking,there are five comprehensive parks supplying catering, accommodation,and meeting simultaneously, including Beijing Luyuan Yijing Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., Taohuayuan Agricultural S&T Development Co.,Ltd., Changli Jinyuan Beijing TropicalPlants Garden,Haitang Manor,and Rongqing Eco-agricultural Co.,Ltd..

Employment scale

In parks, minimum employee number is 4, and the maximum 395,with an average of 66 employees per park. It is obvious that the parks play an active role in resolving local farmers’ employment. For example, the proportion of local farmers in most parks keeps over 60% , and even 100%in 5 parks(Fig.1).

Operation area and establishment time

Most leisure parks have an area below 40 hm2, and there are three parks with areas over 66.67 hm2. The minimum area is 1.33 hm2and the maximum area 133.33 hm2, with an average area of 24.2 hm2.The earliest park was constructed in 2001 and the latest 2014.Most parks are constructed around 2011. According to questionnaire, most parks undergo about 3 years construction before entering prosperous development stage of leisure agriculture.

Operation and management of leisure agriculture

Specifically, 70% park products are produced and marketed all by themselves. In terms of investments,45% parks are characterized by sole proprietorship; 37% are partnership or stockholding system; the rest are invested by villages, government or state-owned enterprise. As for capital source, superior groups and partners both take account for 20%; individual or family capitals represent 45%;bank loan and private lending take up to 8%and 4%accordingly.

In the parks,specialty catering belongs to rural food or local characteristic food, such as braised pigeon and roast whole lamb in Luyuan Yijing,characteristic chaffy dish in Junmingcheng Agricultural Sci-park, and braised venison in Yuluyuan. Besides,fruit and vegetable picking and green shopping items are almost available in all the parks, and there are 10 parks provide services such as S&T training and animal adoption. In addition, Barbecues and agricultural custom experience are also provided in some parks.In characteristic fitness projects,14 parks carry out fishing activity, but campfire party, folklore performance,and karaoke are rare.

As for park management, 70%parks prefer systematic and scientific management, followed by family business taking up to 12%.In terms of experience, 30% parks belong to the inexperienced ones transformed from non-agricultural enterprises; another 30% parks are newly-increased investment projects based on agriculture-related enterprises with little experience; 12% parks develop from small agricultural tourism. In conclusion, almost all park managers gain experience from practice. As for training,60%parks choose internal regular training and priority is given to local residents in employment. Some parks would also prefer online recruitment and special job fair.

Analysis on Employees in leisure Agricultural Parks of Daxing District

Employees in leisure agricultural parks of Daxing District cover supervisors, technicist, waiter, logistical personnel, security personnel and hospital cleaners. On the other hand, most employees are college educated or vocational college educated, and high school and univeristy employees only represent 4%.Besides,over 60%employees are from local areas, consisting of 50% employees from local villages and the rest from other towns in Daxing District.

Introduction of employees’work

Over 50% employees sign termly labor contract, including 50% fixed term contract,30%temporary contract workers and 14% permanent labor contract. As for work time, 40% employees work for 2-4 years,16%employees work for 5-9 years and another 16% work for 10 years. Most are experienced staff (Fig.2).As shown in Fig.3, attendance rate dominates in employee performance, followed by accomplishment of targets and yearon-year growth of business volume.Additionally,about 49%employees believe it is easier for accomplishing the performance, and 40% employees choose easy.

Training introduction

Training is an important part of human resource management for modern enterprises. It aims at bettering the performance of individuals in terms of competitiveness and work ability,which is conductive to improving enterprise competitiveness. As shown in Table 1, 80% employees have trained before working, and 34% believe training is much comprehensive.In practice, training program concern operating skills, pre-job training and etiquette training.

Satisfaction degree of employees on welfare&remuneration

About 34% employees are very satisfied with welfare and remuneration; 32% show satisfied and 16% are not satisfied.Generally speaking,60%employees show high satisfaction degree on incomes(Fig.4).

Employees’ perspectives on individual’s future development

The questionnaire gives two questions concerning development potential in the enterprise, as follows: Do you think the leisure agricultural enterprises provide personal development chances for you Will you prefer jobhopping if possible As shown in Fig.3 the staff’s opinions tend to be volatile upon the aspect. Specifically,about 42% employees believe they have high development potential and 38%hold it is difficult and even impossible for individual development.About 50% employees show they would not change job temporarily; 12% employees show willingness of changing job;the rest choose will not change job or never thinking about it. In conclusion,employees hope enterprises create more development opportunities for them.

Major Problems of Leisure Agricultural Park Development

Insufficient work of planning and homogeneous operation

Without a well-formulated plan, it is difficult for leisure agricultural development to be a part of urban evolvement strategy of Daxing District.There are many problems in practice, resulting in simple imitation and similar services. For example, most parks are dominated by catering service and agricultural picking. As for agricultural products,overlapping issue proves serious in terms of the contents and scale and local and thematic features are not so special. What’s worse,leisure agricultural sites scatter here and there, which is adverse for agglomeration effect,so that it is hard for development of economies of scale.

Most picking and sightseeing gardens are oriented by picking, and just about 10% gardens are different, including floral industrial park and agricultural theme park. Similarly, such phenomenon is quite common in leisure agricultural villages, except of few villages, such as Dongxin Village characterized by specialty catering.Consequently, most consumers come in high spirits but return disappointed,for they can not find ideal leisure agricultural products. Therefore, oriented by experience economy, leisure agriculture demands managers bring forth the new through the old to meet market.In practice,however,managers of leisure agriculture are left behind.

Limited product function and short residence time

Currently, leisure agricultural products are increasingly diversified,but product functions keeps generally single, dominated by catering service or agricultural sightseeing. In contrast,it is rare for comprehensive traveling products to be developed, integrating catering, accommodation, agricultural experiencing,S&T demonstration,entertainment and shopping. Besides, it is surveyed that competition of homogenized product is a serious problem of Daxing District. It can be concluded that it is low development that leads to disorder competition of market and insufficient attraction of products[2]. Specifically, leisure agricultural activities are monotonous, and traveling projects almost keep the same.With indistinct regional and thematic features,leisure agricultural parks less provide the experiencing projects concerning knowledge and recreation. As a result, local traveling projects do not display local culture and tourists do not enjoy themselves, for they only obtain low-quality services or mental experience. Hence, most tourists just experience picking activity, go shopping of some agricultural products or have lunch there before returning. Thetraveling time is limited, and the driving effects on local economy are not satisfied.

Table 1 Training of employees

Poor infrastructure preventing high-end oriented development

Consumers prefer suburb traveling and shopping agricultural products,because they want to enjoy themselves and have fun in natural environment. It is a kind of yearning for rural landscape and lifestyle. Therefore, rural infrastructure is crucial in creating local landscapes, and the principle of"elegance in simplicity" should be insisted on in constructing infrastructure of leisure agriculture.

At present,the traveling infrastructure is not well-constructed of most leisure agricultural sites in Daxing District, preventing rural leisure agriculture development, covering roads,parking lots, washroom and network.For example, there is few or without border trees along roads in the parks or leisure villages,so that it is impossible for tourists shading.What's worse,related facilities are too simple to supporting traveling. For instance, most households oriented by agritainment are developed based on local rooms,without basic facilities of food freshkeeping,sterilization,or fire protection.Additionally, pit latrine is just available in some villages; most dining rooms are open, and separate room is few;guideposts are rarely prepared; road afforestation and street lamp are to be improved.

Restricted extension of industry chain and brand effect

It is notable that leisure agriculture plays an important role in increasing farmer’s incomes in Daxing District.For example, per capital income and agricultural product revenue both grow when agricultural product price declines,which is contributed by benefits from picking activity. In Weishanzhuang village, the price of picking activity of strawberry is in 120 -200 yuan/kg, growing by around 20 yuan,and the price of grape is 10 -40 yuan/kg,increasing by 2 yuan/kg. The picking price of mini-watermelon enhances by 1 yuan in Panggezhuang Town, with year-on-year growth of 7.212 million yuan, taking up to 50%revenue of sightseeing parks.

Nevertheless, Beijing does not show advantages in developing traditional agriculture,due to limited natural resources and high labor costs. Furthermore, agricultural products are monotonous, dominated by picking,catering and shopping of leisure agriculture developed in Daxing District,resulting in low spending from consumers. It is obvious that strength of Daxing District resource is not fully exploited.On the other hand,the chain of leisure agricultural industry extends narrowly. For example, the proportion of high value-added projects maintains lower, such as experiencing activity,entertainment, and shopping, indicating consumption quality of traveling is lower. In terms of the chain depth,leisure agriculture of Daxing District does not fully integrate with industry,business, trade, and service, so that leisure agriculture can not develop on basis of other industries.

Extensive operation and management,and low re-traveling rate

At present, most leisure agricultural enterprises are characterized by self-investment and self-management,so that the investment body is exclusive and development scale is limited.Meanwhile, some enterprises still adopt backward management ways,such as family business.Consequently, services can not meet tourists' demands, and satisfaction degree is to be improved. Therefore, the competitiveness of local enterprises is relatively poor.Besides,leisure agricultural sites scatter here and there in Daxing District, and the integration work is not well prepared,which is adverse for agglomeration effect. In practice, it is recommended cooperation recognition and platform should be established among managers, or it will be hard for economies of scale.

Development Thoughts and Countermeasures of Leisure Agricultural Parks

The research proposed some suggestions based on problems above.

Environment updating involving environment improvements and construction to create a landscape featured by nostalgia

Leisure agricultural environment includes external environment and internal environment. Firstly, it is important to formulate a scientific plan and countryside landscape by renovation of rural eco-landscape and reduce degree of fragmentation of landscapes.Secondly, it is suggested to improve facilities, such as roads, washroom,signboard, green plants, street lamp and facilities in buildings. It is notable that building styles should be featured by local culture. Therefore, it is crucial to build rural landscape system dominated by farmers and improve farmer's recognition on importance of landscape construction. Finally, it is necessary to establish diversified mechanism of landscape oriented by financial investment and dominated by social investment.

Product updating involving exploiting resources and subdividing market,to advance innovated development of leisure agriculture

In order to exploit local culture, it is necessary to improve inheritance,protection and development of agricultural intangible cultural heritage on basis of southern Beijing culture of Daxing, and lead leisure agriculture-oriented enterprises to construct culture theme landscapes by organizing folk activities. Furthermore, it is important to conduct diversified cultural projects to enhance leisure agricultural park interms of cultural tastes and innovation,covering construction of intangible cultural heritage inheritance and protection bases, creation workshop for artists,extra-class education bases for adolescents and rural library. Besides,it is important to develop market concerning parent-child relationship centered on sightseeing, studying, S&T,and ecology, characterized by knowledge, recreation and participationbased and specialized family-dominant village is also a good choice,which makes full use of low-cost model and occupies high-end market, to provide opportunities for leisure agriculture.In addition,private cars of Beijing have reached over 4 million, and 60%tourists of Beijing suburbs choose self-driving travel. Therefore, it is crucial to develop traveling routes suitable for self-driving travel, reinforce road landscape and farmland landscape,and improve infrastructure such as signboards and parking lots. Finally,attention should be paid to aging market. As China enters aging society,there is an increasing number of retirees who have enough time and rural complex. Therefore, it is key to make use of the platform of community and well prepare related promotion.

Brand updating involving cultivating brands and images to construct core attraction of safe and highquality agricultural products

Food safety is an issue concerned by Chinese. Daxing District should be engaged in establishing the image of safe and high-quality agricultural products in Beijing and creating safe product brands based on the opportunity of constructing quality trace system of agricultural products by activities of visiting on site and free tasting. The aim is to draw consumers’ attention on leisure agriculture of Daxing by brand recognition of high-quality agricultural products. What’s more, it is suggested to develop competitive products to promote other products in the entire area and display high-quality agricultural products in an all-round way by advertisement, marketing, and network. Finally, it is recommended to make profits and exploit added value of brand by developing brand strategic alliance, trademark licensing, franchising,purchasing and merging.

Industry structure updating involving adjusting structure and integration of multiple business to create whole industry chain development mode

The whole industry chain, proposed by COFCO Corporation, refers to a complete industry chain system consisting of planting, purchasing,trading, logistics of food materials or fodders,as well as biochemistry,cultivating, slaughtering, food processing,distribution,logistics,brand promotion,and marketing[3]. It gives highlights to advanced, precise and high-end aspects, as well as safety, in order to create safe agricultural base. In practice,it is recommended to build furtherprocessing industry park related to agricultural products in order to integrate processing, production, sightseeing, and tasting. Besides, agricultural exchange center, conference center and business center can be constructed to develop multi-functional business district. Furthermore, it is important to give supports to leading enterprises of the chain relying on brand,science and technology and finance.Additionally, technology innovation is so important in constructing e-commerce platform of leisure agriculture.

Scale updating by system innovation and reinforcement to advance cluster development of leisure agriculture

Specifically,it is necessary to cultivate some leading enterprises and key projects of leisure agriculture by reinvigorating, introducing, and regrouping. For large-scale tourism enterprises, it is crucial to facilitate horizontal and vertical expansions involving scenic spots,restaurants,travel agency and online traveling providers.In contrast, small-scale and lowergrade projects should be consolidated.The region with good infrastructure and potential, it is necessary to build leisure agriculture-based industrial park. Finally, it is of significance to resolve the issue of benefit distribution and the relationship between collective accumulation and farmer’s income growth in order to build scenic spots,advance industry development, enhance collective economy and increase farmer’s income.

Organization updating including system, transformation, and developing standard leisure agricultural professional cooperatives

Under the principle of voluntary participation and mutual benefit, local governments should organize leisure agriculture association, professional cooperatives, improve organization degree of leisure agriculture. Subsidies can be supplied for farmer's cooperative economy organization in developing leisure agriculture. Mutual help of capital is allowed and encouraged among the members and it is advised to build capital mutual help organizations. As for towns or villages performing well in cooperative economy organization, priorities are given to infrastructure construction, such as road and sewage treatment. In addition, leisure agriculture cooperative associations can be organized for attracting foreign businesses and investment and creating regional brand.

Talent updating involving management standardization and cultivating talents to promote high-quality leisure agriculture

It is a way for farmer’s participation and management in leisure agriculture to arouse farmer’s creativity and innovative vitality. However, there is an increasingly high demand on farmer’s education and management capacity. For example, it is necessary to introduce professionals, such as agronomists, florists, designers, managers, public relations managers, and tour guides. It is recommended to reinforce cooperation with human resources and social security bureau and tourism administration to cultivate professional staff and farmers and improve management capacity and service quality. Depending on local agriculture or tourism related colleges and universities,the cultivation system can be established concerning college human resources and employees to meet leisure agriculture demands on planning, designing, management,and servicing.

Conclusion

Currently, with leisure agriculture parks in Beijing suburb available,it be-comes crucial to grasp the opportunity of constructing new towns and the 2ndairport of Daxing District to incorporate the objectives of advancing the primary, secondary and tertiary industries,increasing farmer’s incomes, and improving competitiveness of leisure into Daxing development strategy.

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