The 13th Five-Year Plan agricultural upgrade faces heavy development pressure

2016 is the inaugural year of the “13th Five-Year Plan.” At that time, what situation and challenges will China's food security face? Where will China's agricultural structural adjustment begin? How will crop production and agricultural product processing technology innovate? How will domestic and international food safety strategies connect and be implemented? …… A multitude of difficult problems await solutions.

Recently, the 2015 (Third) China Food and Food Safety Strategy Summit was held in Beijing. With the theme of “Transformation of Agricultural Development Mode and Continuation of Growth Momentum,” the summit focused on how to promote the transformation of agricultural development mode and the upgrading of momentum with an eye to agricultural modernization, and on seeking new momentum for agricultural development during the “13th Five-Year Plan.”

Heavy Development Pressure

“Food shortages will undoubtedly become a thing of the past for China.” Li Wei, a researcher and Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said, “For China, the food problem will at least no longer be a problem in terms of quantity of supply.”

He pointed out that the improvement of China's food and food safety situation has laid a solid foundation for China to respond to various risks and challenges in reform and development and maintain the stable operation of the economy and society, and has also made outstanding contributions to reducing poverty and hunger worldwide and achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals.

However, “we are soberly aware that the foundation for sustainably guaranteeing food and food safety is not solid, and in some respects can be said to be very fragile. Whether it is the external market environment or internal factor allocation, both pose new and very severe challenges to food and food safety in modern China.” Li Wei said.

Grain output has increased year after year, but Li Wei expressed deep concern about the resource costs paid. “Environmental costs and economic costs are becoming increasingly prominent. If grain production continues to be overdrawn in this way, the foundation on which agriculture depends for survival and development will be destroyed, and the sustainable growth of future grain output will inevitably face greater risks.”

At the same time, during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, China's agricultural development has already seen some important changes, beginning to shift from mainly pursuing quantity to placing equal emphasis on quality, quantity and efficiency, from production orientation to demand orientation, and from extensive management that competes on resources and consumption to innovation-driven intensive management.

Li Wei believed that another prominent problem is that the domestic grain market is increasingly affected by the international market. In recent years the state has continuously raised the minimum purchase prices for rice and wheat and the temporary storage price for corn, effectively promoting grain output increases and farmers' income growth, but as internal conditions change, the grain price support policy also faces new challenges.

“With serious inventory backlogs and a heavy fiscal burden, how to improve the price formation mechanism for agricultural products, improve the grain purchase and storage system, and coordinate the two markets and two types of resources at home and abroad is a major issue in China's agricultural policy adjustment.” Li Wei pointed out.

Under the new economic normal, there is another problem that cannot be ignored: hidden dangers in food quality and safety are still numerous. “Facing more than 200 million farming households, more than 400,000 food processing enterprises, and more than 3 million food business entities, the government's existing regulatory capacity is seriously insufficient, and the quality and safety problems of imported food are also not reassuring.” Li Wei said.

Agricultural Structural Adjustment

The “13th Five-Year Plan” just reviewed and approved not long ago particularly emphasizes taking improving the quality and efficiency of development as the center and accelerating the formation of institutional mechanisms and development modes that lead the new economic normal. Accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development mode, with structural adjustment as an intrinsic part of it.

“Since reform and opening up, China's agricultural structural adjustment has roughly gone through four rounds. The current fourth round of structural adjustment is proposed against the background of the ‘six highs.’” Pan Wenbo, Deputy Director of the Department of Planting Industry Management of the Ministry of Agriculture, introduced that the ‘six highs’ are high grain output, high import volume, high inventory volume, high consumption and waste volume, high transport volume, and high resource consumption.

He pointed out that “from the perspective of the planting industry, the four major contradictions and problems China now faces are unbalanced variety structure, declining planting efficiency, still extensive production methods, and weak competitiveness of agricultural products.”

As for structural contradictions, wheat-producing areas are basically balanced, rice is in surplus balance, corn is in periodic oversupply, and the soybean gap is expanding year by year; cotton, sugar crops, and oil crops are constrained by resources and impacted by the international market, with imports increasing substantially and production declining; at the same time, China is short of high-quality forage grass, for example, imports of alfalfa are increasing year by year.

“The goal of this round of structural adjustment is ‘two guarantees, three stabilities, two coordinations.’ The ‘two guarantees’ are guaranteeing staple food and guaranteeing grains, with a staple food self-sufficiency rate of 100% and a grain self-sufficiency rate of above 95%. The ‘three stabilities’ are stabilizing cotton, oil, and sugar, with the cotton self-sufficiency rate basically meeting domestic consumption, the edible oil self-sufficiency rate above 30%, and the sugar crop self-sufficiency rate at around 37%. The ‘two coordinations’ are the coordinated development of vegetable basket production and demand, and the coordinated development of forage grass production and livestock breeding.” Pan Wenbo said.

Where is the focus of the adjustment? Pan Wenbo said: “Corn in non-advantageous areas.” The focal point is placed on the Sickle Bay region. This region has had China's fastest corn growth and largest increment over the past 10 years. At the same time, it is a typical arid region, an ecologically fragile region, and a region that depends on the weather for its living. After the adjustment, the focus will be on switching to silage corn, alfalfa, and forage grass, among others, while also carrying out soybean—corn rotation, and drought-tolerant crops such as miscellaneous grains and potatoes.

Pan Wenbo said that the technical routes are adaptive adjustment, adjustment combining planting and breeding, ecological protection-oriented adjustment, adjustment combining farming and land nurturing, adjustment with both protection and reduction, and adjustment around the market. “As for structural adjustment, we started doing it this year, and now we are mainly guiding farmers to adjust through trials and demonstrations.”