Information-Guided Agricultural Development Enters a New Stage
At the 2015 China Agricultural Outlook Conference, the Market Early Warning Expert Committee of the Ministry of Agriculture officially released the "China Agricultural Outlook Report (2015-2024)," which became a milestone in China's agricultural informatization construction, marking that relying on information to guide agricultural development has entered a new stage. It is a major innovation in agricultural management methods adapting to market-oriented, informatized and internationalized development, and also an important measure to further improve the modern agricultural management system.
Agricultural outlook is an important regulatory means of assessing changes in the supply and demand situation of agricultural products in a future period and, by releasing market signals, guiding agricultural production, consumption and trade activities. Convening an agricultural outlook conference and releasing an outlook report is an important way to use market signals to guide the production and consumption of agricultural products and to give play to the role of the market in allocating resources. It is a common practice in agricultural management by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and developed countries such as the United States and Australia.
Starting in 2002, the construction of the agricultural information monitoring and early warning system entered a track of specialized development, and over more than a decade it has withstood multiple tests, including the transition period after joining the World Trade Organization, the international food crisis and the global financial crisis.
Under the new situation, whether it is accelerating the market-oriented “transformation of development modes and adjustment of structure” of agriculture, promoting modern agricultural construction with farmers as the main body, or formulating and implementing a sound agricultural development strategy and enhancing the international competitiveness of agricultural products, there is an urgent need for timely and effective agricultural information to provide guidance, and an urgent need for agricultural monitoring and early warning technology to provide strong support. Under the new normal of economic development, the environment and conditions for China's agricultural development will undergo corresponding changes, with many old problems remaining and many new contradictions to face. Agricultural development must be planned within the overall pattern of global agricultural development and also laid out within the broader environment of national economic development. China is a major producer and consumer of agricultural products in the world, urgently needing to strengthen its voice in the international market and safeguard its core agricultural interests. Regularly releasing agricultural outlook reports has become an important means of demonstrating the “effect of a major country.”
Openness and transparency of information are an inevitable requirement of the development of a market economy, and are the successful experience of developed countries from long-term practice. Looking ahead, China's new mechanism of modern service-oriented agricultural management, with information guidance services as its core content, will be continuously improved, and the process of agricultural informatization will surely be accelerated.