Advancing agricultural modernization with grain security and income growth as the focus

"The government work report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang is fact-based, offers thorough and penetrating analysis of the situation, and lays out work in a pragmatic and scientific manner. It conforms to reality and accords with public opinion. In particular, the report devotes a large amount of space to comprehensive arrangements and deployment for consolidating the foundational position of agriculture, and puts forward a series of new ideas, new viewpoints and new judgments. Its work measures are strong and highly targeted, and fully reflect care for major agricultural regions, which deeply encourages and heartens us representatives from traditional agricultural areas." Yu Xueyou, a deputy to the National People's Congress from Henan's major grain-producing area and secretary of the Zhumadian Municipal Party Committee in Henan Province, said excitedly.

Yu Xueyou introduced that Zhumadian, as a major agricultural city, is an important production base of high-quality grain and commodity grain for the state and Henan, and enjoys the reputation of "Central Plains Granary" and "Central Prefecture Oil Depot." Under the new normal of economic development, doing a good job in work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers and safeguarding national food security make the people of Zhumadian feel a deep sense of responsibility and a glorious mission. Yu Xueyou said that next they will continue to accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development model and promote agricultural modernization, always place work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the most important position, fully implement the central government's series of policies to strengthen agriculture, benefit farmers and enrich farmers, continue to advance the "hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands" construction of high-standard grain fields, seize the opportunity of the state's building of a food security strategy, accelerate the construction of high-standard grain fields and the transformation of low- and medium-yield fields, and continue to advance projects including the 100 billion jin grain project, comprehensive agricultural development, small-scale farmland water conservancy key counties, and land consolidation. This year, they will strive to add 1 million mu of high-standard grain fields and ensure that the city's high-standard grain field area reaches 4.6 million mu; accelerate the cultivation of modern agricultural industrialization clusters, focus on abundant agricultural and livestock product resources, use the "China Agricultural Processing Fair" as a platform, actively undertake industrial transfer, strive to cultivate and expand leading industrialization enterprises, extend the industrial chain, and strive to build a group of agricultural industrialization clusters that are "full-chain, fully circular, high-quality and high-efficiency." This year, they will strive for the number of provincial-level agricultural industrialization clusters to reach 18 and the output value of the agricultural product processing industry to reach 135 billion yuan; comprehensively deepen rural reform, strive to have the city's land transfer area reach 4 million mu by the end of the year, accounting for about 40% of the city's contracted farmland area, accelerate the building of a new agricultural operating system, accelerate the reform of the rural collective property rights system, and further stimulate the vitality of rural economic and social development.

In light of Zhumadian's actual conditions, Yu Xueyou also suggested that at present most of the country's grain production capacity is concentrated in major grain-producing areas. For many reasons, major grain-producing areas are often relatively economically backward areas, with low fiscal revenue and limited payment capacity. The central government should further increase fiscal transfer payments to core grain-producing areas and increase the fiscal payment capacity of major agricultural cities; at the same time, it should further increase poverty alleviation and development efforts for areas like Zhumadian that are both old revolutionary base areas and traditional agricultural areas, give them preferential treatment in the arrangement of poverty alleviation project funds, and promote the people in these areas to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects together with the people of the whole province and the whole country.