Wang Yang: Vigorously Advancing Agricultural Modernization with New Development Concepts

Vigorously Advancing Agricultural Modernization with New Development Concepts

Wang Yang

The Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (hereinafter referred to as the Recommendations), adopted at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, set out clear requirements for vigorously advancing agricultural modernization. This is an important deployment made in light of the overall situation of China's economic and social development and with a view to achieving the grand goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out many times that whether a society is moderately prosperous or not depends on the rural residents. In building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the most arduous and heaviest tasks are in rural areas; in simultaneously advancing the new type of industrialization, IT application, urbanization and agricultural modernization, the weak link is agricultural modernization. Without agricultural modernization, without prosperous and strong rural areas, and without rural residents living and working in contentment, national modernization is incomplete, not comprehensive and not solid. Agriculture is the foundation for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and for achieving modernization. We must persist in treating the issue of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” as a top priority in the work of the whole Party, increase the intensity of policies that strengthen agriculture, benefit farmers and enrich farmers, and vigorously advance agricultural modernization. 

In recent years, China's level of agricultural modernization has risen steadily, effectively promoting the stable development of agriculture and the sustained increase of farmers' incomes, and laying a solid foundation for overcoming various difficulties and risks and maintaining overall social stability. As China's economic development enters the new normal, with economic growth shifting from high speed to medium-to-high speed and downward pressure on the economy increasing, new and higher requirements have been set for agricultural modernization. It is necessary not only to stabilize agricultural production and guarantee the supply of agricultural products so as to create a favorable environment for economic and social development, but also to tap the consumption potential of rural residents and make good use of the investment space in agriculture and rural areas so as to add new momentum to stabilizing growth. From the perspective of agriculture itself, resource and environmental constraints are becoming stronger and international competition is becoming increasingly fierce, so vigorously advancing agricultural modernization is also an inherent requirement for the sustainable development of agriculture.

⟦NL> In advancing agricultural modernization under new historical conditions, we must, in accordance with the requirements of the Recommendations, “firmly establish the development concepts of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing”, overcome development difficulties, cultivate development advantages, “focus on building a modern agricultural industrial system, production system and management system, and improve the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of agriculture”, and accelerate the transformation of China from a large agricultural country into a strong agricultural country.

I. Actively Innovate and Improve the Institutional Mechanisms for Modern Agricultural Development

Innovation is the primary driving force for development. To vigorously advance agricultural modernization, we must increase the intensity of innovation and strive to form institutional mechanisms that adapt to modern agricultural development and conform to the requirements of the market economy.

We must innovate agricultural management methods. This is an objective requirement of agricultural modernization. The Recommendations stress that we should “accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development model, develop moderate-scale operations in various forms, and give play to their leading role in modern agricultural development”. An overly small scale is the biggest constraint on China's agricultural modernization. Expanding the scale of agricultural operations can bring more modern production factors, management models and development concepts into agriculture, promote the application of agricultural machinery and scientific and technological achievements, open up markets for agricultural products, and raise the level of organization, industrialization and marketization of agriculture. We must actively use various forms such as specialized cooperation, shareholding cooperation, land transfer, land equity participation and land trusteeship to develop moderate-scale agricultural operations. We must focus on cultivating new types of business entities and guide and support large growers and breeders, family farms, farmers' cooperatives and agricultural enterprises to develop and grow. Given China's national conditions, household operations will occupy a foundational position for a fairly long period. We must accelerate the development of commercial services, do a good job in public-benefit services, and improve the agricultural socialized service system; this is also an effective way to develop scale operations.

We must innovate the rural property rights system. This is an important guarantee for agricultural modernization. The rural property rights system covers a wide range of areas, and the most important is land property rights. The Recommendations propose to “stabilize rural land contracting relationships, improve the method of separating land ownership rights, contract rights and management rights, advance the orderly transfer of land management rights in accordance with the law, and build a policy system for cultivating new types of agricultural business entities”, and to “deepen reform of the rural land system. Improve the powers and functions of rural collective property rights”. This further clarifies the main tasks of reforming the rural property rights system and is of great significance for activating rural land and other factors and promoting the optimal allocation of resources. We must adhere to collective ownership of rural land, uphold the basic rural management system without wavering, and safeguard farmers' land contract and management rights in accordance with the law. We must coordinate the pilot reform of rural land expropriation, market entry of collective commercial construction land, and the homestead system, and steadily and orderly carry out pilot mortgage loans on rural contracted land management rights and farmers' housing property rights. We must actively develop and strengthen the collective economy and explore effective forms for realizing the rural collective economy. We must protect the rights of farmers as members of collective economic organizations, grant farmers the rights to possess shares in collective assets, receive returns, withdraw for compensation, mortgage, guarantee and inherit, establish rural property rights transfer and trading markets, and stimulate the vitality of rural development.

We must innovate the supporting system for science and technology and other modern factors. This is an inherent requirement of agricultural modernization. The Recommendations propose improving the “modern agricultural science and technology innovation and extension system”, “developing the modern seed industry”, promoting the growth and expansion of the agricultural machinery and equipment industry, “raising the level of agricultural mechanization”, and “advancing agricultural standardization and IT application”. To promote agricultural science and technology innovation, we must deepen reform of the agricultural science and technology system and improve incentive policies for researchers and grassroots agricultural technology extension personnel. We must focus on making breakthroughs in a number of common key technologies and accelerate the resolution of prominent problems such as upgrading the modern seed industry, full-process mechanization of major crop production, and agricultural IT application. The application of modern factors such as agricultural science and technology inevitably requires the modernization of workers. We must attach importance to improving the overall quality of farmers, cultivate new-type professional farmers, and shift agricultural development onto the track of relying mainly on scientific and technological progress and the improvement of workers' quality. Advancing agricultural modernization is also inseparable from financial support. We must “deepen rural financial reform and improve the agricultural insurance system”, and through financial innovation improve the capacity of credit, insurance and other services for agriculture.

II. Promote Coordination and Improve the Quality of the Modern Agricultural Industry

Modernized agriculture is inevitably agriculture with a rational internal structure and one that is compatible with economic and social development. Therefore, to vigorously advance agricultural modernization, we must adhere to coordinated development.

We must promote coordinated development within agriculture and form a modern agricultural production structure. In a large developing country like ours with a population of more than 1.3 billion, safeguarding national food security has always been the primary task of agricultural modernization. To this end, the Recommendations stress that we should “adhere to the strictest farmland protection system, hold the red line for farmland, implement the strategy of storing grain in the land and in technology, increase grain production capacity, and ensure basic self-sufficiency in grains and absolute security of staple foods. Comprehensively designate permanent basic farmland, promote on a large scale farmland water conservancy, land consolidation, transformation of medium- and low-yield farmland and construction of high-standard farmland, strengthen the construction of main production areas for grain and other bulk agricultural products, and explore the establishment of grain production functional areas and important agricultural product production protection areas”. If grain production is stabilized, the overall agricultural situation is stabilized, staple food supply is guaranteed, food security has a basic guarantee, and more resources can be devoted to developing diversified production. While emphasizing the improvement of grain production capacity, the Recommendations clearly point out that we should “promote coordinated planning of grain, cash crops and feed, and the combination of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries”, which points the way for adjusting the agricultural structure. We must encourage farmers to base themselves on resource endowments and face market demand, adjust the structure of crop planting and livestock and aquaculture breeding, strive to meet society's multifaceted demand for agricultural products, and continuously increase farmers' incomes. We must give play to regional comparative advantages, accelerate the creation of leading agricultural products and pillar industries with regional characteristics, and optimize the regional layout of agriculture.

We must promote coordinated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas and form a modern agricultural industrial system. The Recommendations propose promoting “the integration of planting, breeding and processing and the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries”, “promoting intensive and deep processing of agricultural products and the development of rural service industries”, and “advancing the construction of industrial chains and value chains, developing the multiple functions of agriculture, and improving the comprehensive efficiency of agriculture”. Coordinated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries is a new connotation of agricultural modernization and also the key to improving agriculture's comprehensive efficiency and promoting farmers' income growth. We must focus on introducing new technologies, new forms of business and new models, actively promote the value-added processing of agricultural products, accelerate the development of modern circulation methods such as direct order sales, chain distribution and e-commerce, do everything possible to raise the added value of agriculture, tap the ecological value, leisure value and cultural value of agriculture, develop modern characteristic industries such as rural tourism, and continuously expand new areas of agricultural modernization.