National Forum of Major Grain-Producing Counties: Let grain farmers benefit and let major producing areas not lose out
“Among the 800 major grain-producing counties that account for nearly three-quarters of the country's total grain output, more than 100 are national-level poverty-stricken counties, with 36 million poor people. This shows that the phenomenon of ‘grain-finance inversion’ between China's grain output and county-level fiscal capacity is already very obvious, and may bring hidden dangers to food security.
”So said a research report published in August this year by the China Well-off Society Construction Research Association.
To this end, on December 12 the China Well-off Society Construction Research Association, together with the China Economic Reform Research Foundation and the Chinese Agricultural Economics Society, jointly held the National Major Grain-Producing Counties Investment Innovation High-end Forum at Tsinghua University, aiming to better promote the coordinated urban-rural development of major grain-producing counties and effectively safeguard the national food security strategy. Wang Julu, deputy director of the Social and Legal Affairs Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference; Duan Yingbi, president of the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation; Chen Mengshan, secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Yin Chengjie, president of the Chinese Agricultural Economics Society; and Ye Xingqing, director of the Rural Economy Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, attended the meeting.
In his speech, Chen Mengshan said that China's grain production reaching a “twelfth consecutive increase” this year was no easy achievement. Therefore, it is essential to stabilize the enthusiasm of major grain-producing county governments, stabilize the enthusiasm of grain-growing farmers, consolidate, adjust and improve support policies, and increase the intensity of scientific and technological innovation drivers, so as to realize the new food security concept of “relying mainly on ourselves, based on domestic production, ensuring production capacity, moderate imports, and scientific and technological support.”
He suggested establishing a group of grain-stabilizing regions to ensure permanent grain fields; improving the assessment, evaluation and benefit compensation mechanisms, fully implementing the central-local division of grain production responsibilities, and the benefit linkage mechanism between major grain-producing areas and major grain-selling areas, clarifying the tasks of major grain-selling areas, enhancing emergency grain safeguard capacity, and easing the grain storage burden of major producing areas; increasing agricultural investment in major grain-producing counties, raising their operational level, and solving the difficulties of agricultural loans. He also suggested that during the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, the modernization of agriculture in major grain-producing counties and integrated urban-rural development should be elevated to the national and strategic level and given key support.
Yin Chengjie pointed out that national fiscal, financial and insurance funds and social capital should work together to promote integrated urban-rural development in major grain-producing counties. Investment in major grain-producing counties should be laid out with problems as the guide, urgent needs as the trend, and the comprehensive realization of rural well-off construction as the direction. It is necessary to uphold the development concepts of “innovation, green, coordination, openness and sharing” proposed in the “13th Five-Year Plan” recommendations. The concept of sharing should be embodied, so that major grain-producing counties can share the support of national fiscal, financial, insurance and social capital; the concept of coordinated development should be embodied, so that by investing in integrated urban-rural development in major grain-producing counties, the coordinated development of agriculture and other industries in major grain-producing counties is promoted; and the concept of “sense of gain” should be embodied, so that farmers truly feel that growing grain does not leave them worse off, maintaining the enthusiasm of local governments for grain production and of the broad masses of farmers for growing grain, and providing a guarantee for national food security.
He stressed that investment in major grain-producing counties should be made a priority, helping major grain-producing counties take the lead in realizing agricultural modernization, supporting them in taking the lead in transforming agricultural development and realizing the “new five modernizations” of integrated urban-rural development, supporting them in taking the lead in advancing rural reform and institutional and mechanism innovation, and encouraging the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in major grain-producing counties.
Wang Julu said that although China's grain production has increased for twelve consecutive years, it is still necessary to remain vigilant in times of peace and consider dangers, and that problems such as agricultural output increasing without income increasing have always challenged the country's food security and troubled the development of the rural economy. He suggested gradually changing the development concept of valuing cities over villages, and under the new normal of economic development, giving full play to the decisive role of the market in allocating resources and having the government better perform its macro-control functions, and increasing investment in rural consumption and supply. At the same time, multiple measures should be taken simultaneously, taking safeguarding national food security as a historical mission, and accelerating the transformation of traditional agriculture toward an efficient, technology-driven, ecological, large-scale, market-oriented and internationalized green modern agricultural development model.
The 800 major grain-producing counties nationwide account for 73.64% of the country's total grain output and are the main force of our grain production. Strengthening the production capacity building of major grain-producing counties and mobilizing the enthusiasm of farmers in major grain-producing counties for growing grain are the fundamental guarantee for effectively implementing the national food security strategy.