How can distinctive premium agriculture develop? Transforming the approach is key
Liu Xin, a deputy to the National People's Congress and mayor of Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province, who attended the third session of the 12th National People's Congress, said in an exclusive interview with reporters that Premier Li Keqiang's exposition on accelerating agricultural modernization in the "Government Work Report" has ushered in a new opportunity for Mudanjiang City's agricultural development. As the country's only prefecture-level green food experimental base, Mudanjiang is accelerating the transformation of its agricultural development approach and promoting the development of premium agriculture.
Liu Xin introduced that Mudanjiang's citywide forest coverage rate reaches 62.3%, respectively 42 and 15 percentage points higher than the national and provincial average levels. It has uniquely favorable ecological conditions, and its soil organic matter content is more than double the national average level, making it an ideal place for producing green and organic food. It was once selected as one of "China's Top Ten Green Cities" and "China's Top Ten Livable Cities." For this reason, Mudanjiang City is accelerating its efforts to build itself into the capital of green and organic food, and has now established 13 national-level green and organic food raw material bases.
Distinctive agriculture is Mudanjiang City's unique advantage. Liu Xin said that this year Mudanjiang will leverage the national comprehensive supporting reform for modern agriculture in the "two major plains," accelerate the transformation of its agricultural development approach, vigorously develop distinctive premium agriculture, and work hard on marketization, industrialization and scale. It is necessary to strengthen market orientation, promote intensive and deep processing of agricultural products, drive the transformation of the agricultural growth model from production-processing-sales to sales-processing-production, and let good products sell at good prices. It is necessary to increase the intensity of agricultural structural adjustment, build high-standard modern agricultural parks around the "one belt, six zones" layout, promote the integrated development of agriculture with the secondary and tertiary industries, extend the industrial chain, and broaden income-increasing channels. It is necessary to seize the opportunity of industrial and commercial capital entering the "three rural" fields, innovate circulation models, encourage and guide farmers to circulate land management rights through various methods such as subcontracting, leasing, exchange, transfer and shareholding. This year, the proportion of circulated land in cultivated land area will reach more than 30%, support out-of-region and private capital in participating in land circulation and the development of new types of operating entities such as family farms, professional cooperatives and estate economies, with family farms and farmers' professional cooperatives reaching 1,350 and 1,900 respectively. Strongly develop greenhouse and shed mushrooms, facility vegetables, high-end animal husbandry, high-quality rice, under-forest economy and intensive and deep grain processing, and build a modern agricultural complex supported by multiple industries. Strengthen brand integration and marketing, simultaneously promote online e-commerce transactions and offline physical sales such as specialty agricultural product franchise stores and specialized markets, and increase the market share of high-quality agricultural products. Promote rural financial innovation, develop financing guarantee institutions, expand rural property mortgage guarantee business such as land contractual management rights and homestead use rights and the area of agricultural insurance, and inject new momentum into the development of the "three rural" fields.