Interview with the Minister of Agriculture: Accelerating the Transformation of Agricultural Development Mode

Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Accelerating the Transformation of Agricultural Development Mode." It is understood that this is the first important document at the national level to systematically deploy the work of transforming the agricultural development mode. To gain a deeper understanding of the spirit of the document, the reporter interviewed Han Changfu, Minister of Agriculture.

Reporter: Against the backdrop of China's grain production achieving "eleven consecutive increases," another bumper summer harvest this year, and the accelerated development of modern agriculture, why did the state issue the "Opinions on Accelerating the Transformation of Agricultural Development Mode"? How has it made strategic arrangements for this work?

Han Changfu: In recent years, China's modern agriculture construction has been accelerating, and agricultural development has made tremendous achievements. However, various risks, challenges and structural contradictions have also been accumulating and gathering. The two "tightening bands" of ecological environment and resource conditions are growing tighter and tighter. The double squeeze of the "floor" of agricultural production costs and the "ceiling" of agricultural product prices is growing heavier and heavier. The people's demand for diversified agricultural products and quality safety is growing higher and higher. The pressure on agriculture to ensure supply, ensure income, ensure safety and ensure ecology is growing greater and greater. Facing the new situation, there is an urgent need to accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development mode.

The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to this. The Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2014, the Central Rural Work Conference and this year's Central Document No. 1 all put forward clear requirements for accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development mode. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that we must unswervingly accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development mode, and as soon as possible shift to intensive development that gives equal weight to quantity, quality and efficiency, focuses on improving competitiveness, focuses on agricultural technological innovation, and focuses on sustainability. Premier Li Keqiang pointed out that to break the two "tightening bands" of ecological environment and resource conditions, we can only accelerate the modernization of agriculture and promote the transformation of the agricultural development mode.

Formulating and issuing the "Opinions on Accelerating the Transformation of Agricultural Development Mode" is an important measure to implement the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council. This is the first important document at the national level to systematically deploy the work of transforming the agricultural development mode. According to the requirements of the "Opinions," at present and for a period to come, accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development mode should take the development of moderate-scale operations in various forms as the core, take the building of a modern agricultural management system, production system and industrial system as the focus, strive to transform the agricultural management mode, production mode, resource utilization mode and management mode, and push agricultural development from mainly quantity growth to equal weight on quantity, quality and efficiency, from mainly relying on material factor input to relying on scientific and technological innovation and improving the quality of laborers, and from extensive management dependent on resource consumption to sustainable development, taking the path of modern agricultural development with efficient output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness.

Transforming the agricultural development mode is a systematic project and a long-term strategy. We must persist in taking enhancing grain production capacity as the primary prerequisite, taking improving quality and efficiency as the main direction, taking promoting sustainable development as an important element, taking advancing reform and innovation as the fundamental driving force, and taking respect for farmers' principal position as the basic principle. We should strive to achieve positive progress in transforming the agricultural development mode by 2020, further stimulate the internal vitality of agriculture, steadily enhance comprehensive agricultural production capacity, continuously raise the level of agricultural resource utilization and ecological environmental protection, and steadily increase farmers' incomes, providing important support for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. By 2030, the transformation of the agricultural development mode should achieve remarkable results, with agricultural quality and efficiency markedly improved and competitiveness significantly enhanced.

Reporter: As economic development enters the new normal, some new changes have appeared in the current grain supply and demand situation. May I ask whether the "Opinions" have made new adjustments and changes in the way food security is achieved?

Han Changfu: Transforming the agricultural development mode absolutely does not mean relaxing grain production, and must never weaken comprehensive agricultural production capacity. The "Opinions" propose to persist in taking enhancing grain production capacity as the primary prerequisite. We must ensure that our rice bowl is firmly held in our own hands at all times, and consolidate the foundation for transforming the agricultural development mode. At the same time, the "Opinions" have made corresponding adjustments in the approach to safeguarding national food security, mainly to promote the shift of grain production from focusing on annual output to steadily enhancing grain production capacity, realizing "stable output," "storing grain in the land" and "storing grain in technology." This is also to safeguard national food security in a longer-lasting and better way. "Stable output" means concentrating efforts and doing everything possible to protect the most basic and most important grains and staple foods, and on this basis, giving overall consideration to the production of important agricultural products such as cotton, oil, sugar and the "vegetable basket." "Storing grain in the land" means accelerating the construction of high-standard farmland. Taking high-standard farmland construction as a platform, we should integrate the paid use fees for newly added construction land, comprehensive agricultural development funds, modern agricultural production development funds, etc., use them in a coordinated way and concentrate efforts on construction, building 800 million mu of high-standard farmland by 2020. We should advance the transformation of low- and medium-yield fields in a planned and piece-by-piece manner, and improve agricultural production conditions. In conjunction with the designation of permanent basic farmland, we should explore the establishment of grain production functional zones, giving priority to major rice and wheat production areas such as Northeast China, the Huang-Huai-Hai region and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and build a number of high-quality and efficient grain production bases. "Storing grain in technology" means taking the connotative development path of relying on scientific and technological progress and raising per-unit yield levels. We should vigorously carry out high-yield grain creation activities and promote green models; strengthen independent innovation in agricultural science and technology, vigorously develop modern seed industry, advance full-process mechanization of major crop production, accelerate the development of agricultural informatization, and give grain production the wings of science and technology.

Reporter: The "Opinions" propose that accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development mode should take the development of moderate-scale agricultural operations in various forms as the core. May I ask how land scale operations can adapt to the new requirements of transforming the agricultural development mode?

Han Changfu: How land scale operations can adapt to the new requirements of transforming the agricultural development mode is clearly expounded in the "Opinions," namely that on the basis of steadily carrying out the work of confirming, registering and issuing certificates for rural land contractual management rights, all localities should adopt measures such as fiscal rewards and subsidies to support the development of moderate-scale agricultural operations in various forms, and guide farmer households to transfer contracted land according to law by means such as subcontracting, leasing, exchange, transfer and shareholding. Where conditions permit, and on the premise of adhering to agricultural land being used for agriculture and resolutely preventing "non-agriculturalization," cultivated land may be consolidated in contiguous tracts according to farmers' wishes, minimizing field ridges, expanding cultivated land area and raising the level of mechanized operations.

Specifically, efforts should be made in the following three aspects:

First, encourage innovative forms of land transfer. Accelerate the development of land management rights transfer markets in various forms, improve the three-level service and management network at the county, township and village levels, and build a good platform and provide good services for land transfer. Encourage contracted farmer households to transfer contracted land according to law by means such as subcontracting, leasing, exchange, transfer and shareholding. Encourage places where conditions permit to formulate support policies, guide farmer households to transfer contracted land on a long-term basis and promote their transfer to employment. Encourage the development of moderate-scale operations in various forms, and build a new agricultural management system that combines intensification, specialization, organization and socialization.

Second, reasonably determine the scale of land operations. The scale of land operations is not the bigger the better; there should be a suitable range, and it should be determined reasonably according to local conditions. According to estimates, at the current stage, key support should be given where the farming income from the scale of land operations is equivalent to the income from working in local secondary and tertiary industries, and where the scale of land operations is equivalent to 10-15 times the local average contracted land area per household.

Third, improve the agricultural socialized service system. Raise the level of scale through establishing and improving the agricultural socialized service system. Agricultural scale operations can take many forms. Land scale operations can be formed through land transfer, and the level of organization and scale can also be raised through developing unions and cooperation among farmer households and agricultural socialized services. Encourage the development of trusteeship service models that do not change farmer households' contractual relations while ensuring the land is cultivated, and encourage large grain-growing households, large agricultural machinery households and agricultural machinery cooperatives to carry out full-process trusteeship or trusteeship of main production links, realizing unified cultivation and scale production. The "Opinions" also clearly point out that measures such as fiscal support and credit support should be adopted to accelerate the cultivation of agricultural operational service organizations, carry out pilot government purchases of agricultural public welfare services, and actively promote service forms such as cooperative, trusteeship and order-based services.

To develop agricultural scale operations in various forms, we must proceed according to local conditions and step by step, and effectively achieve the "three no-gos," namely: no great leap forward, no coercion and commandism, and no blind administrative direction, prevent "non-grainization" and prohibit "non-agriculturalization."

Reporter: At present, there is a saying that "agricultural non-point source pollution is China's largest source of pollution," and there is also a saying that "agricultural non-point source pollution accounts for more than half of the country's pollution emissions." May I ask how this problem can be effectively solved through transforming the agricultural development mode?