The first document, or known as the No. 1 document, to address China’s agricultural issue by improving agriculture science and technology is in urgent need, considering the present situation facing the agricultural development.
The current situation and concerns
The CPC committee decided to issue the top document on agriculture and rural areas in an all-round way based on several considerations, said Chen Xiwen, director of the office for the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee’s Leading Group on Rural Work, at a news conference organized by the State Council Information Office on Feb. 2.
First, China is facing more complicated and arduous domestic and international economic situations. To maintain stable and rapid economic development, basically stable prices, social harmony and stability and make stable progress, China should avoid any accident in agriculture and any problems in agricultural product suppliers. This year, the 18th National Party Progress to be held is of vital importance for creating a sound atmosphere, promoting the general work and winning strategies to do a good job in agriculture, farmer and rural area development, stabilizing agricultural production and guaranteeing effective agricultural product suppliers.
Second, in terms of development demands, China should stabilize agricultural production and stably ensure effective supplies of grain and other important agricultural products for the long term. China does not have enough space to achieve this goal by continuing to increase irrigation and land resources; China must increase the per-unitarea yield. To increase the yield, China should not continue to increase the utilization of fertilizers and pesticides because this can reduce efficiency, ruin the environment and can not last long. Meanwhile, it is necessary to promote sustainable and rapid growth of farmers’ incomes by issuing good policies, increasing prices and encouraging them to work in cities, and these methods should be strengthened in the future. But the fundamental way is to develop productive forces, constantly increase land productivity, resource utilization and work efficiency through sci-tech progress, and increase farmers’ income by increasing production, improving quality and saving costs. Thus, science and technology is vital to consolidate and develop good agricultural situations in rural areas.
Third, in terms of work guidance, the CPC Central Committee has issued eight high priority documents since 2004. By focusing on a specific theme every year, the Committee has issued a series of important policies and measures to strengthen, benefit and enrich farmers and promote sustainable and stable agricultural and rural development, winning consecutive good harvests in grain production, continuous increase of farmers’income and constant improvement of people’s livelihood in rural areas. Evidence shows that the top documents on agriculture and rural area work issued by the Committee can help highlight key working areas, clarify policy orientation and major signal of the Committee in guiding the work of agriculture, farmers and rural areas.
In general, the Committee set the theme of top document this year as“speeding up innovation in agricultural science and technology and building up the capacity to guarantee adequate suppliers of agricultural products”, which better promotes development, responds to the grassroots demands, considers the long-term goals and enriches and develops the policy system of agriculture, farms and rural areas on the basis of maintaining policy continuity. Achievements in agriculture
According to Chen, the year 2011 saw frequent extreme climates, soaring agriculture costs and arduous tasks of stabilizing market prices. Despite that, the agricultural and rural work maintained strong development impetus, initiating a good beginning for the development of the 12th Five-Year Plan. Great progress has been made in improving production, increasing farmers’incomes, water conservancy project construction, improving people’s livelihood, modern agriculture and new countryside construction. 2011 was the best year in this century in terms of agricultural and rural development as a whole.
China’s grain output hit 571 million tons in 2011, an annual increase of 4.5 percent and the eighth consecutive year of growth, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Besides, positive momentum is leading to rapid growth of farmers’income in an all-round way. Last year, farmers’ per capita net income reached 6,977 yuan, more than 1,000 yuan higher than the previous year, setting a record high. Actual growth hit 11.4 percent, setting a new record in this century. The high growth has lasted for eight consecutive years.
Moreover, good development of modern agriculture is accelerating the promotion of new countryside construction in an all-round way. China has basically established a region-based agricultural development layout, greatly strengthened construction of farmland water conservancy projects, developed agricultural facilities and continued to improve the contribution rate of agricultural sci-tech progress and the level of farming mechanism. Further, improvement of people’s livelihood is lifting the public services in rural areas in an all-round way. Farmers’ optimism is leading to the strengthening of grassroots organized construction and social management in rural areas.
Chen pointed out that despite the huge achievements, there are also concerns: whether or not the momentum in rural and agricultural development can be sustained; the rapid increase of the prices of essential factors of production and frequent market fluctuations pose challenges in improving efficiency of agricultural production and mobilizing farmers’ enthusiasm; also, whether the emerging trend of narrowing down the income gap between urban and rural areas and the development gap among different regions is going to continue as to increase farmers’ benefits.
Major contents of the document
The beginning of the document highlights three key areas on the basis of fully affirming achievements in agriculture, farmers and rural areas this year and deeply analyzing current difficulties and challenges, said Chen. First, China should categorically not be sluggish because of the successive increase of grain production, not reduce investment because of the improvement of rural areas or become lax because of good turns in rural development. Second, the document affirms the importance of agricultural science and technology, which is the basic support to ensure national food security, the necessary option of breaking through the limitations of environmental resources and the decisive force of accelerating construction of modern agriculture. Third, the document also clarified the general ideology of strengthening science and technology to ensure development, strengthening production to ensure suppliers and strengthening people’s livelihood to ensure stability.
According to Chen, the main body of the document reflects the country’s considerations in five aspects. First, in terms of the framework, the document stresses on and strengthens support from three aspects. Around the issue of building up the capacity to guarantee agricultural product suppliers, the first part stresses on the work of increasing investment and work efforts and pragmatically working on agricultural production; after that, the second, third and fourth parts put focus on sci-tech support for agriculture; the fifth part talks about infrastructure support and the sixth part discusses support from market circulation.
Second, in terms of the policy system of agriculture, farmers and rural areas, the document clarifies guidance in three aspects. In the past, stress is put on “supporting farmers”, and later “supporting and benefiting farmers”. At the Third Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee, the idea of “strengthening and benefiting farmers” was put forward. In the document, the idea is upgraded to “strengthening, benefiting and enriching farmers.” This idea enriches and develops the strategic ideology of giving top priority to agricultural development, details and materializes the ideas of industry supplementing agriculture and urban areas helping rural areas, and is the precise summary of strengthening agricultural basis, benefiting development in rural areas and enriching farmers’ lives.
Third, in terms of investment to agriculture, farmers and rural areas, the document requires constant increases in investment in three aspects: increasing financial expenditures on agriculture, farmers and rural areas; increasing the state fixed asset investment to agriculture and rural areas; and increasing investment to agricultural science and technology so as to ensure growth in increment and proportion.
Fourth, in terms of strengthening service of agricultural technology promotion, the document puts forward three policies in a collective manner, namely, increasing the salary of registered agricultural technicians to the same level of those working grassroots institutions; promoting the reform of the grassroots agricultural technology promotion system and the program of constructing demonstration counties to basically cover agricultural counties(cities, districts and farms); and making the qualification construction of agricultural technology promotion organization cover all towns.
Fifth, in terms of fostering new type of farmers, the document mainly adopted “three measures”, namely, further increasing the fund allocation standards for students of agricultural disciplines; the state compensating the tuition fees and paying study loans for the qualified university graduates who work in rural areas; accelerating the pace of free secondary vocational education and implementing subsidy policy for vocational training so that every backup worker in rural areas can master a skill.
In conclusion, the document puts forward the general requirement on strengthening and improving the leadership of the CPC on the work of agriculture, farmers and rural areas, promoting integrated cultural development in urban and rural areas, pragmatically protecting and improving people’s livelihood in rural areas and strengthening and innovating social management in rural areas.