Development Model of Daren Village Pastoral Complex in Ningbo in the Context of Rural Revitalization Strategy

Qingyang CHEN*, Yubai SHI2, Huachun XIE

1. College of Design Art and Architecture, Zhejiang Wanli University, Ningbo 315100, China; 2. School of Medical Technology, Ningbo College of Health Science, Ningbo 315100, China

Abstract Daren Village in Ningbo has deeply explored the connotation of farming culture, and built an agricultural tourism health care industrial park integrating leisure agriculture, eco-tourism and healthy pastoral using the natural pastoral resources of the park. This pastoral complex achieves the goals of increasing agricultural efficiency and farmers’ income and improving rural greening by strengthening industrial revitalization, integrating the "sixth industry" and building an urban-rural integrated development hub. However, in the process of development, there are also some problems, such as single development model, insufficient innovation, lack of brand effect, single financing mode and standardization of services. In view of these problems, this paper provides some scientific and objective guidance for the construction of domestic pastoral complex.

Key words Pastoral complex, Daren Village, Rural revitalization strategy, Development mode

1 Introduction

With the rapid advancement of urbanization, the problems of agricultural marginalization, rural hollowing-out and labor aging are becoming increasingly prominent. The coordinated development of leisure agriculture and rural tourism can create new development space for promoting the transformation and upgrading of agricultural industry and the optimization and adjustment of industrial structure, which is of great significance for realizing China’s rural revitalization strategy[1]. The key of rural revitalization strategy is to realize industrial revitalization, drive economic prosperity through industrial prosperity, and further revitalize the rural real economy, so as to achieve the development goal of rural prosperity and farmers’ happiness.

As a new agricultural operation mode, "pastoral complex" emphasizes taking rural agriculture as the leading, making full use of local resources, integrating the concept of sustainable development and promoting the integration of urban and rural areas[2]. It integrates creative agriculture, life and ecology. It not only effectively improves the rural ecological environment and farmers’ quality of life, but also improves the development level of rural economy[3]. In 2017, the No.1 Central Document of China affirmed the development strategy of "pastoral complex" for the first time, and encouraged eligible rural areas to carry out pilot projects through different channels, and ensured farmers’ full participation and benefit from it through policies[4]. In the context of the current urbanization development situation, a comprehensive analysis of the concept and connotation of the rural compound development model is of great significance for the realization of rural revitalization. Taking the Daren Village Pastoral Complex in Ningbo as an example, we analyzed the development advantages of the pastoral complex model under the current environment of agricultural supply side structural reform. At the same time, we put forward optimization strategies for the main problems in the development process at this stage, in order to provide objective and scientific reference for better realizing the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas.

2 Research overview

Daren Village Pastoral Complex project is located in Fanlitang, Yongjiang Residential District, Jiangbei District, Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. It covers an area of about 40 ha. It is the core project of the beautiful pastoral complex in the "northern suburb of the garden" of Jiangbei District. It has invested more than 40 million yuan to complete the construction of infrastructure such as tourist center, Daren square and scenic water system. The project is located in the "Yangtze River Delta economic circle" and "Ningbo metropolitan circle", with superior geographical location and convenient transportation. Daren Village pastoral complex project actively responds to the development strategy of "accelerating the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, prospering rural economy and promoting rural construction" of Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee, adheres to the concept of green development and reflects the development direction of combining tourism and production[5]. With rural night tour and rural leisure as highlights, Zhejiang Daren Tourism Co., Ltd. has built an agricultural tourism health industrial park integrating leisure agriculture, eco-tourism and healthy countryside. At present, it has been successively selected into the list of "national demonstration park for integrated development of rural industries", national four-star demonstration park for leisure agriculture and rural tourism, provincial leisure agriculture demonstration site, provincial modern agriculture demonstration park and other honorary titles.

Daren Village Pastoral Complex is mainly composed of five core functions: leisure tourism, creative agriculture, folk performing arts, fairy tale world and pastoral community. With the planning purpose of "living in the city and dreaming back to the hometown", it focuses on the integration of pastoral night and local characteristic culture of Ningbo. It is a rare urban central pastoral leisure tourism destination in eastern Zhejiang. Leisure and tourism areas include market blocks, food villages, country bars, night villages,etc.Classical buildings and garden landscapes are scattered, simple, elegant and modern. The creative agricultural area includes pastoral scenery, rice field art and start-up farms. In particular, combined with artistic lighting simulation technology, it creates characteristic night landscapes such as golden rice fields and fluorescent footpaths, so as to bring visual enjoyment of rural night scenery to tourists. The folk performance area is composed of an ancient stage and a temple of the God of wealth, performing folk activities such as Yue Opera and juggling at different times. The fairy tale world includes farming experience, age memories, happy pastures and pastoral schools, providing a place for people in different ages to find and understand nostalgia. Rural communities include home stay vacation, entrepreneurial life, pastoral experience, agricultural work,etc.in cooperation with local village committees, they adopt a new development model of "enterprise demonstration & collective participation & farmers’ drive" to achieve the objectives of increasing agricultural efficiency and farmers’ income and improving rural greening.

3 Opportunities and advantages of Daren Village Pastoral Complex

3.1 Location advantagesAs a kind of modern economy, the development of pastoral complex is also affected by location factors[6]. The unique location conditions can bring a large number of tourists to the project. Pastoral tourism and related industries have gradually become a new growth point of rural economy. The purpose of low input and high output can be achieved through proper planning of project site selection. Daren Village Pastoral Complex is adjacent to Meizhu road in the East and Beihuan East Road in the north. It is located in the northern suburb of Ningbo City Center and close to Lishe international airport, with convenient transportation. Most tourists come from Ningbo, Shaoxing, Hangzhou and other cities, covering the southern metropolitan area of the Yangtze River Delta. Sufficient tourist sources have created a steady stream of power for the sustainable development of Daren Village. Reasonable site selection has greatly reduced the investment of Daren Village project. Convenient traffic conditions have further increased the attraction of Daren Village project to tourists, so that it can obtain a good return on investment. The project is led by the government, injected with industrial and commercial capital, and participated by the rural areas in the northern suburbs. The efforts of the three parties have promoted the stable development of the project.

3.2 Ecological advantagesEco-livable pastoral complex is not only to simply change the appearance of the village, but also to advocate low-carbon and green sustainable development, focusing on the unique ecological environment resources of the countryside[7]. Daren Village has rich rural cultural heritage, the two natural villages are well preserved, and the river is clean and clear. The cement road is replaced by an alley paved with pebbles and bluestones. Grass grows between the stone cracks, and vines climb up the fence. The ancient houses have been strengthened and repaired to maintain and restore the old style of the village and the old street, so that tourists can experience walking in the moonlight of the lotus pond, watching the story of "talent and beauty" on the water stage in the sound of frogs, and tasting Ningbo dishes under the "guidance" of crickets and fireflies. The good ecological environment, beautiful natural environment and unique local culture of the park can meet the nostalgic feelings of "urban heart and pastoral dream" of tourists without changing the original environmental appearance in advance.

4 Characteristics of Daren Village Pastoral Complex model

4.1 Strengthening industrial revitalization to promote the development of a new poverty alleviation modelThe Daren Village Pastoral Complex model designs tourism products suitable for tourists of different ages according to the real needs of tourists for "nostalgia" and their own internal resources. For example, it introduces well-known home stay enterprises such as "Ju Shandi", "Han Huayuan" and "Wushe", to realize the linkage development of the local economy by uniformly leasing the house use right through the village collective, focusing on the agricultural tourism brand of nostalgic economy. With rural areas becoming scenic spots and rural areas becoming gardens, villagers have also become employees, driving the further development of catering, home stay and agricultural products around the village, and nearly 600 villagers have achieved entrepreneurship and employment at home. Since its opening, the number of tourists in Daren Village has reached 750 000 person times/year, the revenue has exceeded 20 million yuan/year, and the per capita cash income of villagers has exceeded 40 000 yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 30%. The rent of village collective property increased from 8-30 yuan/month for 1 m2, an increase of 60%, realizing the benign interaction between urban organic renewal and villagers’ poverty alleviation and prosperity.

4.2 Integrating the "the sixth industry" to promote rural revitalizationThe integration of "the sixth industry" under the background of the rural compound development model is based on agriculture, through the extension of the industrial chain, industrial integration and technological filtering, to further reasonably allocate capital, technology and resource elements, broaden the channels for increasing farmers’ income, and import advanced management models and concepts into traditional agriculture, so as to realize the new business form of mutual penetration and integration of agriculture and tourism industry, service industry, processing industry, information industry and cultural industry[8]. Under the background of today’s era, the main reasons for the emergence of "three rural" problems are the slow development of rural industry and the low overall level of rural economy. By integrating the development model of "the sixth industry", we can well solve the problems of agricultural marginalization and rural hollowing-out, and promote the rapid growth of local economy. The first mock exam is in line with the policy requirements of rural supply side reform and rural industrial innovation, and is a new model of sustainable development. Based on the rural and natural environment, the Daren Village combines the farming and tourism projects with folk culture together, and develops the Internet plus development mode by using the new Internet technology. Now it has become the leading area of rural culture and the master area of industrial convergence and development, and has realized the multiplier effect of industrial value.

4.3 Promoting common prosperity through the integrated development of urban and rural areasIn recent years, the renovation of "hollow villages" has become an important issue to narrow the difference between urban and rural dual structure, solve the imbalance of urban and rural development, develop rural economy and improve farmers’ life. Urban-rural integration is an inevitable stage of urban development, including industrial integration, production resource integration and talent integration, which is conducive to fundamentally solving the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers and building a model of common prosperity demonstration area in Zhejiang Province[9]. The development model of pastoral complex fully integrates urban and rural resources, constructs the link between urban and rural areas, and then promotes the development of urban-rural integration. Relying on the unique rural resources, the Daren Village Pastoral Complex integrates derivative industries based on agriculture and rural tourism as the development theme, attracts a large number of urban tourists to the village to experience rural life, promotes the all-round integration of industry, form, infrastructure, public services and policy mechanisms between urban and rural areas, and effectively slows down the siphon effect of the city.

5 Difficulties in the development model of Daren Village Pastoral Complex

5.1 Single development mode and indistinct integration of three industriesThe development mode, main cooperation mode and industrial integration trend of pastoral complexes in different regions should adapt to local conditions and reflect their own development characteristics, so as to achieve the grand goal of rural revitalization. At present, the construction planning of Daren Village project is basically based on "agriculture", integrated into the secondary and tertiary industries and extended the value of the industrial chain, but there is still a gap in the deep processing capacity of original ecological agricultural products. In addition, the renewal and maintenance of scenes in the scenic spot is lack of sustainability, the experience of rural production and life is low, and the industrial scale and integrated development of various industries have not been formed. The homogenization of the combination of agriculture and tourism is serious, and the characteristic town and tourist home stay lack of unique charm and cultural connotation. Only by combining nature and humanities to create an integrated pastoral complex can it be a tourism and even migration destination of "longing before going and forgetting to return after going"[10].

5.2 Passive brand sales channelEnhancing the internal value culture of agricultural tourism products and promoting brand strengthening agriculture is an important choice to comply with the evolution trend of pastoral complex and improve the economic benefits of the project[11]. Although Zhejiang Daren tourism has good brand awareness, it has not formed a good brand effect. At present, the brand sales channel of agricultural products in Daren village is single, and the sales on the e-commerce platform only involves amusement projects, which fails to deeply develop the original high-quality agricultural products and catering. The prices of agricultural products have no obvious advantages over similar commodities in the market. In particular, because of the uncertainties such as COVID-19, the sales situation is bad, the industrial chain is faulting, and the stable economic benefits can’t be generated. The burden of operators is aggravated, and the vicious spiral of complex development is formed.

5.3 Lack of financing policy system supportBecause the cultural tourism project of pastoral complex is vulnerable to the changes of market factors such as market price, personnel flow and road traffic, the participation of social capital is insufficient and the financing risk is high. Once a certain market fluctuation occurs, it is easy to lead to the suspension of the project. At present, the main problem in the financing of Daren Village Pastoral Complex is that the capital structure is relatively simple, which is mainly carried out by Zhejiang Daren Tourism Co., Ltd. investors often consider the project in multiple dimensions, which affects the universality of the implementation of this model. The financing structure of Daren Village project ignores the participation of local farmers, and there is no participation of other construction subjects, such as rural cooperatives. Local farmers can’t effectively participate in the financing process of Daren Village project, and the project fails to form a good equity incentive for local farmers. The differences in cultural and educational backgrounds and lifestyles between the management and local farmers will also lead to the risk of incompatibility and even exclusion. Most of the financial institutions have the attribute of enterprises, bear their own risks and assume sole responsibility for their own profits and losses. Therefore, the pastoral complex needs relevant mechanisms to weaken financial risks and obtain financial capital support.

5.4 Shortage of professional servicesThe operation and management of Daren Village Pastoral Complex is that most of the business subjects are the surrounding people, which fully solves the employment problem of local residents, realizes the poverty alleviation and prosperity of farmers, and promotes the stable growth of rural economy. However, this development model of bringing villagers into daily operation and management is also a double-edged sword. Although the pastoral complex has driven the development of local economy, due to the low degree of specialization of villagers’ tourism and management, they have not formed a good service concept and aren’t aware of the role of service quality in promoting consumption, it is easy to affect the reputation of the village project due to the lack of standardization of services. The lack of professional technical personnel and management personnel is an important factor affecting the professional level of the park, which can easily make the Daren Village fall into development difficulties, thus limiting the normal development of pastoral complex projects.

6 Discussion on the optimization strategy of the development model of Daren Village Pastoral Complex

6.1 Tapping rural creativity and promoting industrial integrationDaren Village integrates the local unique folk customs and characteristic culture into the rural landscape, and gets rid of the development mode of traditional farmhouse entertainment, but the form of expression is still too single. In the future, we should strengthen top-level design through close contact with experts in the field of landscape architecture, pay attention to the green transformation of agriculture on the urban demand side, actively inject urban science, technology, creativity and other elements into agriculture, form modern urban agriculture and give new impetus to the rural economy. It can focus on displaying more distinctive animal and plant landscape matching and agricultural activities, develop agricultural products and processed products with more local characteristics, such as cultivating new varieties such as glass watermelon and milk strawberry, promote the organic integration of production experience, ecological civilization and popular science education, and build its own characteristics of "one garden and one product". At the same time, taking "seeing mountains, seeing water and remembering homesickness" as the development soul, maintain the pastoral scenery, respect the natural pattern, improve the tourism system of the pastoral complex, develop new forms of rural tourism such as pastoral elderly care, pastoral office and educational experience, and promote the harmonious development of the overall environment of the pastoral complex.

6.2 Strengthening publicity and enhancing brand awarenessThe Daren Village Pastoral Complex project has good brand awareness in Ningbo, but its reprocessed agricultural products have not formed a good brand effect due to the lack of good marketing awareness. Because of the lack of characteristics of agricultural specialties and food products in the park, similar products can be found everywhere in the market, making the products lose competitiveness. Daren village shall carry out corresponding packaging design according to its own products, accelerate the promotion of brand trademark registration and unified management, establish an industrial brand jointly built and shared by villagers, village collectives and settled enterprises, and establish a directory list to improve recognition, recognition and reputation. In terms of brand management, we should take improving the quality of agricultural products as the attack direction, establish product access standards and quality control standards, and truly "produce" high quality, "improve" quality and "build up" reputation. In the publicity process of Daren Village agricultural products, we can rely on well-known commercial attractions such as Nantang Ancient Street in Ningbo City, cooperate with the publicity of enterprises and social institutions and the guidance of the government to improve the brand awareness of Daren Village agricultural products.

6.3 Integrating social subjects and expanding financing formsIn the context of rural revitalization, it is not feasible to build pastoral complexes only in the form of enterprise investment, and most governments have limited financial funds. Choosing a good financing method will help to solve the capital problem. The Daren Village Pastoral Complex project can appropriately change the financial capital structure, introduce a variety of social subjects, clarify the responsibilities and rights of all parties, have a clear boundary of limited recoverable responsibilities, have an organizational structure for operation and a perfect accounting management and accounting system, and take a relatively independent enterprise subject as the borrower to connect with the financial institution. Financial institutions have long-term and social credit for agricultural development projects such as pastoral complexes. It is suggested that financial institutions can refer to PPP project financing mode, take the cash flow generated by the project as the repayment source, design the project as an independent individual loan product, increase the credit, and realize the financing support for pastoral complexes through standardized system support[12].

6.4 Introducing professional management team to improving service qualityIn view of the lack of compound talents in Daren Village Pastoral Complex, we should deal with the relationship between "introduction" and "education" of talents, and establish and improve the long-term mechanism of talent development. We can recruit relevant professional management and technical talents from society and universities, gradually optimize the professional level of the employees, make use of advanced management experience, break through the business difficulties of rural comprehensive projects, and establish a good standard system for the current service mode. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the business training for employees in the park. On the one hand, it is necessary to normalize and institutionalize the training, formulate a set of talent training scheme based on the actual work of the park, and hire senior professionals to provide technical guidance and professional training for the park through joint construction project support with colleges and universities. On the other hand, by regularly carrying out Internet information training and organizing field trips, we can learn and improve in exchanges and cooperation, comprehensively improve the quality of personnel of new business entities, and cultivate a talent team of new business entities with high level of information application technology, strong production and operation ability and obvious main role, so as to provide fresh nutrients for the development of the complex.

7 Conclusions

Promoting high-quality rural development and balancing the pattern of urban and rural interests are the key issues under the 14thFive-Year Plan in China. The development model of pastoral complex effectively introduces urban industry, technology, talents and other elements into the countryside, and constructs a shared "life ecosystem" between urban and rural areas from the four levels of space, industry, platform and community. Urban and rural areas depend on and blend with each other, forming a co construction relationship between urban and rural areas, and effectively promoting the overall development of urban and rural areas. Relying on its good location and ecological advantages, the Daren Village Pastoral Complex project adheres to the concept of "integration of production, village and people", "equal emphasis on internal and external soul" and "living, industry and tourism", which has driven the stable growth of rural economy. However, there are still some problems in Daren Village project, such as single development mode, thin brand sales channel, single financing form, non-standard service and so on. In the future, Daren village should follow the design concept of natural ecology and highlighting local agricultural culture, make innovation of the development mode, use good financing channels to transform functional blocks, strengthen publicity, improve service quality, form the brand effect of products, and build a "Ningbo model" for rural revitalization with high quality.