How can major grain-producing counties become prosperous? More than a hundred of them are still nationally designated poverty-stricken counties

A research report by the China Well-off Society Construction Research Association states that among China's 800 major grain-producing counties, which account for nearly three-quarters of the national total grain output, more than a hundred are nationally designated poverty-stricken counties, with a poor population of 36 million. The phenomenon of "grain-finance inversion" between grain output and county-level fiscal capacity is very obvious, bringing hidden dangers to national food security.

At the "China Food Security and Urban-Rural Coordinated Development High-End Forum on 800 Major Grain-Producing Counties" held here on the 22nd, Wang Julu, president of the China Well-off Society Construction Research Association, said that on the basis of in-depth research into the country's 800 major grain-producing counties, the association had produced a research report titled "Recommendations on Accelerating the Implementation of the Integrated Urban-Rural Development Strategy for 800 Major Grain-Producing Counties During the 13th Five-Year Plan Period." The report holds that 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, but the development of these major grain-producing counties is generally backward, with a comprehensive urbanization rate of only about 24%, and as many as 105 of them are nationally designated poverty-stricken counties. Many major grain-producing counties remain fiscally poor counties, increasingly trapped in the vicious circle in which the greater the contribution to grain production, the less the local fiscal revenue, the lower the farmers' income, and the more backward the economy. This has already seriously affected the enthusiasm of local governments for agricultural production and of farmers for growing grain, bringing hidden dangers to national food security and comprehensive, sustainable social and economic development.

⟦NL> The research report shows that the per capita fiscal revenue of China's main grain-producing areas is less than 80% of the national average, and most major grain-producing counties are fiscally poor counties. Taking Heilongjiang Province, China's largest grain-producing province, as an example, among its 70 major grain-producing counties, 43 counties have fiscal revenue of less than 100 million yuan, 21 counties are provincial-level or nationally designated poverty-stricken counties, and 60 counties rely on fiscal transfer payments to maintain government operations.

The report recommends that, in view of the special status and contribution of the 800 major grain-producing counties in ensuring national food security, consideration should be given at the strategic level to incorporating the formulation and implementation of an integrated urban-rural development strategy for the 800 major grain-producing counties into the national "13th Five-Year Plan" as soon as possible, so as to break free as quickly as possible from the "high-yield, poor-county" situation of national grain production, and to make arrangements through policy guidance, institutional design and planning layout, and to make arrangements for projects, funds and measures.

The reporter also learned that the China Well-off Society Construction Research Association also established an expert think tank committee on the 22nd. The establishment of the think tank is expected to provide more intellectual support for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and for further in-depth and systematic research on related topics in the next step.