With the ending of extreme poverty in China this year, the government’s focus continues to be on the needs of the rural economy. Addressing the Dec. 28-29 Central Economic Conference on Rural Work, President Xi Jinping said that the “three rural issues” were the top priority for the Communist Party of China going forward: “agricultural production, rural development, and farmers’ income.” While the role of the peasant has always been preeminent in the development of the party historically, this orientation has not changed with the rapid industrial and financial development of the country. Each year in the annual meetings of the “Two Sessions” of the legislative bodies, the agricultural report always comes first.
President Xi praised the advances the country had made in this area up to now. “The comprehensive agricultural production capacity has risen to a big stage, the income of farmers has more than doubled compared with 2010, the livelihood of the rural people has been significantly improved, and the face of the country has been completely renewed. Earthshaking changes have taken place in poverty-stricken areas, and historic achievements have been made in solving the absolute poverty problem that has plagued the Chinese nation for thousands of years.”
There are a number of new considerations this year, however. The ending of poverty has now become sustainable, and continued efforts will be made to secure the advances and to move further in bringing rural incomes up to the levels in urban areas. The new “dual circulation” development policy, which relies more on the increase of domestic consumption as a growth-driver, also entails a considerable improvement in rural income – and consumption. As Xi indicated: “From the perspective of major changes in the world that have not been seen in a century, maintaining the fundamentals of agriculture and maintaining the foundation of ‘agriculture, rural areas and farmers’ is the ‘ballast stone’ for responding to the situation and opening a new game. To build a new development pattern and place the strategic base on expanding domestic demand, there is huge room for rural areas to accomplish a lot.”
The increasingly aversive international environment for China has also increased awareness of maintaining sufficient agricultural production and capacity. While China produces plenty of grain, experts say that problems could arise in products such as corn or animals if there were to be any cut-off from the world market. President Xi said that to firmly hold the initiative in food security, food production must be stepped up every year, the red line of 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares) reserved for cultivated land be strictly guarded. The country “must adopt hard measures in order to grow teeth, and implement the most stringent cultivated land protection system.”
“It is necessary to build high-standard farmland to truly achieve guaranteed yields in droughts and floods, and high and stable yields. It is necessary to take the protection of black earth regions as a major issue and make good use of the black earth areas to raise it. We must persist in self-reliance and self-reliance in agricultural science and technology, and accelerate the advancement of key agricultural technology research,” the President said.
