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800 Major Grain-Producing Counties Accelerate Coordinated Urban-Rural Development
The 800 major grain-producing counties, which account for 73.64% of the national total grain output, have always been the main force in China's grain production and have always occupied an irreplaceable position in ensuring national food security. However, the county-level economies of these counties remain very difficult. Without transfer payments from the central finance, local fiscal expenditures are hard to sustain; basic public services in society are unequal and low in level, and the benefits of reform and development cannot be fully shared. Investment in new-type urbanization is small, debts are many, and the compliance rate is low; the radiation and driving functions of towns are poor; the secondary and tertiary industries are small in scale and slow in development, making it difficult to form a pattern in which the primary, secondary and tertiary industries promote each other and develop to mutual benefit. The comparative benefit gap between urban and rural areas and between industries is obvious, farmers' income growth is slow, and the loss of young and middle-aged labor is severe. These problems have seriously affected the enthusiasm of local governments to focus on grain and of farmers to grow grain, and have brought huge hidden dangers to national food security and comprehensive, sustainable social and economic development.</p> <p> In light of rural realities and in studying the instruction in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that integrated urban-rural development is the fundamental way to solve the “three rural issues” (agriculture, rural areas and farmers), it is suggested that, starting from the 13th Five-Year Plan, the implementation of coordinated integrated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties be elevated to the level of a national strategy. This will have a more positive and far-reaching impact on realizing a fundamental transformation of the development model of the national rural economy, fundamentally ensuring national food security, resolving the long-standing accumulated problems of the “three rural issues,” advancing new-type urbanization, accelerating the process of agricultural modernization and building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.</p> <p> <strong> At present, the process of coordinated integrated urban-rural development in China's 800 major grain-producing counties is seriously lagging</strong></p> <p> (1) The urbanization rate of China's 800 major grain-producing counties is far below the national average</p> <p> The 800 major grain-producing counties are widely distributed across 24 provinces and autonomous regions in China, and urban-rural development generally lags behind. According to statistics, the comprehensive urbanization rate of the 800 major grain-producing counties is only about 24%, far below China's urbanization rate of 53.7% based on the permanent resident population, and even further below the average level of 80% in developed countries.</p> <p> Data from the National Bureau of Statistics for 2013 show that the secondary and tertiary industries formed through urbanization will each generate a 3.7% driving force on local GDP growth. Yet the urbanization level of the 800 major grain-producing counties is generally not high, and their capacity to lead rural areas with cities and promote agriculture with industry is low.</p> <p> (2) High-yield but poor counties are common among the 800 major grain-producing counties</p> <p>⟧ <p> According to statistics, in 2013 the grain output of the 800 major grain-producing counties (cities, districts, banners and farms) already accounted for 73.64% of the national total grain output, of which the grain sown area accounted for 65.86% of the national total sown area, and commercial grain accounted for 86.7% of the national total rural commercial grain. However, among the 800 major grain-producing counties, there were as many as 105 national-level poverty-stricken counties, accounting for 13.13% of the total 800 major grain-producing counties. Many major grain-producing counties are still fiscally poor or fiscally small counties, producing a strange cycle in which the greater the grain contribution, the less the local fiscal revenue, the lower the farmers' income, and the more backward the local economy.</p> <p> (3) The socialized service system for grain production is weak, hindering the development of grain agricultural modernization and the improvement of grain-growing efficiency</p> <p> At present, the agricultural socialized and specialized service system in China's major grain-producing counties remains weak. The added value of socialized services accounts for only 2.3% of agricultural GDP, far from the roughly 12.5% share in developed countries. This is also one of the important reasons for the slow increase in farmers' income.</p> <p> Due to the lack of necessary support, encouragement and guidance policies, the government and social entities are not highly motivated to build a socialized and specialized service system. In the main grain-producing areas, socialized services such as infrastructure construction, input services, production operation services and pest and disease prevention and control are generally not matched, not complete and not widespread; township governments have limited means and low capacity to organize services.</p> <p> (4) Low incomes for grain farmers and backward basic social service guarantees have led to serious loss and weakening of human resources among grain farmers</p> <p> In recent years, because grain prices have encountered a “ceiling” and the prices of production factors such as agricultural inputs have risen year after year, the comparative benefit of grain has become even lower and is trending downward. In most places, the net income from one mu of grain is only about two or three hundred yuan. In addition, the basic pension for grain farmers is low, rural social assistance funds are limited, grain farmers' income grows slowly, the level of social security is low, and the harsh working environment has led a large number of young and middle-aged rural laborers to go out to work, making the problem of farmers' aging increasingly apparent. According to the standard of the International Labour Organization that 45 years of age and above constitutes elderly labor, statistics on this basis show that elderly labor in China's major grain-producing counties is as high as more than 85%. Such a labor force structure cannot bear the heavy responsibility of ensuring national food security, let alone meet the needs of agricultural modernization.</p> <p> <strong> The significance of giving priority to implementing the important strategy of coordinated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties</strong></p> <p> (1) Using the accelerated pace of coordinated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties as an engine is a priority path for breaking through China's “three rural issues” dilemma</p> <p> Relying on their good agricultural production foundation, the 800 major grain-producing counties have a prominent rigid-demand effect in agriculture and the power to leverage industry. By grasping coordinated integrated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties, one grasps the focus and the key for the rural situation as a whole. The bottleneck of the “three rural issues” can be broken through here, innovative experience in new-type urbanization can be discovered here, and all reform policies for cities supporting rural areas and industry repaying agriculture can first be practiced here, striving to make practice here an incubator of experience for transforming the development model of the national rural economy.</p> <p> (2) Strengthen the sense of hardship and fully understand the important significance of transforming the development model for ensuring national food security</p> <p> At present, China's rigid demand for grain will continue to increase, but resource constraints are very obvious, and the difficulty of promoting the stable development of grain production and steadily improving comprehensive agricultural production capacity continues to grow. China's eastern coastal areas have many people and little land and obvious advantages for industry and commerce, so reductions in cultivated land and soil pollution will be difficult to avoid for a considerable time, and the contradiction between grain supply and demand is becoming increasingly prominent; the western regions suffer serious soil erosion, have mostly dry years, and face land desertification that is difficult to treat in a short time, so achieving grain self-sufficiency is also very difficult. In addition, as a large country with a population of 1.3 billion that is still growing, food security can only be based on itself, and it cannot rely excessively on the international market. By strengthening the sense of hardship, abandoning as soon as possible the old traditional path of pursuing grain for grain's sake and agriculture for agriculture's sake, and unhesitatingly taking the new path of coordinated integrated urban-rural development, it will be possible to fundamentally consolidate and improve the comprehensive grain production capacity of major grain-producing counties and safeguard China's food security in accordance with the laws of industrial development.</p> <p> (3) Accelerating the implementation of coordinated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties is an important interface for the coordinated development of China's main agricultural areas with the national new-type urbanization strategic pattern</p> <p> The 800 major grain-producing counties are widely distributed across 24 provinces and autonomous regions in central and eastern China and overlap spatially with 19 of the 21 major urbanization areas (out of a total of 21) in the national new-type urbanization strategic pattern. Through redesigning the respective positioning and functions of major urbanization areas and grain production areas, a coordinated model can be formed featuring efficient allocation of innovation resources, openness and sharing, and joint prevention, control and treatment of regional environmental issues, shaping an interactive, complementary and mutually beneficial platform of “large leading small, small supplementing large.” Through the regional interface of coordinated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties, a cross-regional “complementary integrated urban-rural development mechanism” among clusters can be constructed, becoming a new pattern of coordinated urban-rural clusters with high development agglomeration efficiency and strong complementary industrial functions nationwide, thereby making the strategic layout of China's new-type urbanization more reasonable and complete.</p> <p> (4) Accelerating the implementation of coordinated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties can enable farmers there to increase incomes and escape poverty as soon as possible, contributing to building a moderately prosperous society in all respects</p> <p> Taking the lead in promoting the process of coordinated integrated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties will enable the 36 million poor people in major grain-producing counties, who account for 51.3% of the total rural poor population, to benefit or escape poverty as soon as possible, contributing to building a moderately prosperous society in all respects on schedule.</p> <p> (5) Accelerating the implementation of coordinated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties is an indispensable component of ensuring the implementation of the “Belt and Road” strategy</p> <p> Against the background of the nation's implementation of the new-type international “Belt and Road” strategy, it is necessary to make full use of policy guidance and market mechanisms to integrate urban and rural resources, accelerate the cultivation of internationally competitive agricultural enterprise groups, support the strengthening of agricultural product trade, and encourage overseas agricultural cooperation and development; relying on the food security guarantee system of the 800 major grain-producing counties, do a good job in adjusting varieties and balancing surpluses and shortages, creating more favorable guarantees for the implementation of the “Belt and Road” strategy.</p> <p> (6) Accelerating the implementation of coordinated integrated urban-rural development in the 800 major grain-producing counties is conducive to advancing China's process of comprehensively realizing modernization</p> <p> The 800 major grain-producing counties, which account for as much as 46% of China's rural GDP, hold a pivotal position in the overall situation of rural economic development. Through implementing the strategy of coordinated integrated urban-rural development, they will certainly become an engine driving force for the development of agricultural modernization nationwide and play a positive role in accelerating the comprehensive realization of modernization.<br /> <br />
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