How can we get off to a good start in transforming the agricultural development model?
It is once again the time of the Spring Equinox. Spring is the first of the seasons, and farming comes first. Right now, from south to north, we are gradually entering the critical stage of spring plowing and preparation. Doing a good job in spring agricultural production is of vital significance to stable grain output for the whole year, agricultural development, and the steady operation of the economy and society.
As China's economic development enters a new normal, agricultural development has also entered a new stage: agricultural production is facing the double squeeze of a “ceiling” and a “floor” created by steadily rising production costs and steadily falling international prices, and is constrained by the two “tight hoops” of increasingly scarce arable land and water resources and a steadily deteriorating production environment. The shift from extensive traditional agriculture to a new type of modern agriculture brooks no delay.
Farming must be done early. To transform the agricultural development model, action and measures are needed starting this spring. To get off to a good start and make a good beginning in transforming the agricultural development model, we must first do a good job in spring production and lay a solid foundation for stable output and increased income for the whole year.
Transforming the agricultural development model and adjusting the structure, and getting the economy moving and stabilizing the overall situation, must be built on the basis of a stable grain supply. This year's government work report proposes that grain output must be kept stable at more than 1.1 trillion jin. Although this is 100 billion jin lower than last year's actual output, achieving it will not be easy. Objectively speaking, the pattern of China's agricultural production depending on the weather has not changed, and grain production is not in a safety deposit box. Summer grain accounts for one quarter of the national grain output, and the area sown to grain in spring accounts for more than half of the total area. Only by doing a good job in agricultural production can there be a solid foundation for achieving the annual grain production target, and only then can transforming the agricultural development model and adjusting the structure be guaranteed.
To get off to a good start and make a good beginning in transforming the agricultural development model, we must further deepen rural reform and make great efforts to advance agricultural structural adjustment. Governments at all levels must strengthen planning guidance, scientifically analyze factors such as local resource endowments, locational characteristics, market conditions, and industrial foundations, formulate plans for optimizing agricultural structural adjustment, and clearly define the direction and focus of agricultural development. We must support innovation-driven development, advance agricultural structural adjustment, improve the quality, efficiency, and competitiveness of agricultural products, and give agricultural production the wings of science and technology. We must strengthen policy support, formulate specific support policies centered on promoting the integration of the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, and by supporting a number of famous and high-quality brands and leading enterprises, drive the enthusiasm of farmers, thereby promoting the integration of market demand and farmers' behavior.
To get off to a good start and make a good beginning in transforming the agricultural development model, we must actively and steadily develop appropriately scaled operations. Since the beginning of this century, even as China's rural labor force decreased by one third, grain output achieved growth of more than 30 percent, and appropriately scaled operations played a vital role. Under the new normal, whether stabilizing grain production or adjusting and optimizing the agricultural structure, we cannot do without new types of agricultural entities or the development of various forms of appropriately scaled operations. We must study and introduce more support measures to encourage appropriately scaled operations, so that large grain-growing households, family farms, farmer cooperatives, agricultural social service organizations, and other new types of operating entities play the leading role in transforming the agricultural development model and adjusting the structure, and truly become the main force leading the new normal in agriculture and advancing agricultural modernization.