Where does rural reform go under the new normal?
Recently, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Several Opinions on Intensifying Reform and Innovation to Accelerate Agricultural Modernization," and the 2015 Central Document No. 1, themed "Intensifying Reform and Innovation to Accelerate Agricultural Modernization," once again locked onto the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers. This marks the 12th consecutive year since 2004 that Central Document No. 1 has focused on agriculture, rural areas and farmers. It shows the sustained and high attention of the Party Central Committee and the State Council to the issues of rural areas, agriculture and farmers.
The theme of the 2015 Central Document No. 1 is "Intensifying Reform and Innovation to Accelerate Agricultural Modernization," which in fact continues the approach of the first year of reform in 2014 to comprehensively deepen rural reform and advance agricultural modernization, and further points out the key points and direction of rural reform under the new normal, making comprehensive arrangements for the rural component in the overall situation of comprehensively deepening reform, and taking a solid step in the process of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
The document proposes promoting the synchronized development of new industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization, striving to tap new potential in raising grain production capacity, open up new paths in optimizing the agricultural structure, seek new breakthroughs in transforming the agricultural development model, achieve new results in promoting farmers' income growth, and take new steps in building a new countryside, so as to provide strong support for the sustained and healthy development of the economy and society.
Promoting agricultural modernization through new urbanization
The 2015 Central Document No. 1 proposes that to strengthen agriculture, it is necessary to shift as soon as possible from extensive management that mainly pursues output and relies on resource consumption to intensive development that lays equal emphasis on quantity, quality and efficiency, focuses on improving competitiveness, focuses on agricultural scientific and technological innovation, and focuses on sustainability, and to take the path of modern agricultural development featuring high output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness.
Against the background of new urbanization, a large number of agricultural transfer populations enter cities and become urban residents, and agriculture needs to operate on an appropriate scale through a modernized development model.
In this regard, Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an interview with a China Economic Times reporter that the purpose of developing agricultural modernization is to improve agricultural production efficiency and increase farmers' income. Through the process of urbanization, part of the agricultural population is transformed into urban residents, while those who remain in rural areas can become professional farmers, producing through mechanized production methods and improving production efficiency with a market-oriented service concept. In this way, people can choose according to their own actual circumstances to become new urban residents or new farmers, which can provide the conditions they deserve for those who go to cities or return home to start businesses.
Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Rural Work Leading Group and director of its office, said that under the new normal, many farmers, especially young and middle-aged farmers, go to cities to work, accumulating a certain amount of knowledge, a certain amount of management ability, and also a certain amount of funds, but they may find that opportunities in the city are not as numerous as in rural areas. Therefore, many such young farmers will bring funds, technology and management capabilities back to their hometowns to start businesses, and such cases are increasing.
"We need to cultivate new-type professional farmers, develop family farms, large growers and specialized large households, and also encourage farmers to join together to set up cooperatives. We hope that young people with capital, knowledge and vision can return to their hometowns and, as new agricultural entities, develop modern agriculture," Li Guoxiang said.
Li Guoxiang reminded that farmers will further differentiate in the future. If young people want to go to rural areas to start businesses, they must first make sufficient ideological preparations and conduct investigations and research, and, in light of their own experience and local resource conditions, accurately grasp the market.
The previously convened Central Rural Work Conference also emphasized developing agricultural modernization against the background of new urbanization. The meeting required giving full play to the radiating and driving role of new urbanization in agricultural modernization. Efforts should be made to properly solve the existing "three 100 million people" issue, innovate ways of using cities to support rural areas and industry to promote agriculture, guide the flow of modern urban production factors to agriculture and rural areas, and promote farmers' income growth through multiple channels. We should actively and steadily advance the building of a new countryside, accelerate the improvement of the living environment, raise the quality of farmers, and promote the construction of both a "new countryside of things" and a "new countryside of people." We should continue to declare war on poverty, promote the combination of regional development and targeted poverty alleviation, and accelerate the pace of poverty-stricken areas shaking off poverty and becoming prosperous.
Some views hold that new urbanization and agricultural modernization must be handled together. Therefore, the central government currently places special emphasis on properly solving the existing "three 100 million people" issue, innovating ways of using cities to support rural areas and industry to promote agriculture, guiding the flow of modern urban production factors to agriculture and rural areas, and promoting the construction of both a "new countryside of things" and a "new countryside of people."
Striving to create "strong, prosperous and beautiful"
Centering on the integration of urban and rural development and deeply advancing the building of a new countryside, Central Document No. 1 sets out requirements for building a new countryside in six aspects: intensifying rural infrastructure construction, raising the level of rural public services, comprehensively advancing the improvement of rural living environments, guiding and encouraging social capital to invest in rural construction, strengthening rural ideological and moral development, and effectively strengthening Party building at the rural grassroots level.
While solving the problems encountered in the process of granting urban residency to agricultural transfer populations, it is also necessary to actively build a new socialist countryside and create possibilities for providing equal public services and good living conditions for residents remaining in rural areas and farmers who choose to return home.
"Strong, prosperous and beautiful" are regarded as the three key words of the 2015 Central Document No. 1. In addition to agriculture needing to be strong, Central Document No. 1 proposes that for China to be beautiful, rural areas must be beautiful. To make rural areas prosperous, it is necessary to persistently advance the building of a new socialist countryside. It is necessary to strengthen the guiding role of planning, accelerate the upgrading of rural infrastructure, advance the equalization of basic public services between urban and rural areas, and make rural areas a beautiful homeland where farmers can live and work in peace and contentment.
For China to be prosperous, farmers must be prosperous. To enrich farmers, it is necessary to fully tap the income-increasing potential within agriculture, develop the income-increasing space of rural secondary and tertiary industries, broaden external income-increasing channels for rural areas, increase policy support for farmers' income growth, and strive to maintain the momentum of the continuous narrowing of the income gap between urban and rural residents under the new normal of economic development.
In terms of raising the level of rural public services, Document No. 1 mentions specific requirements in education, medical insurance, social security and infrastructure construction, including comprehensively improving the basic conditions for running weak rural compulsory education schools and improving the teaching quality of rural schools; actively developing agricultural vocational education and vigorously cultivating new-type professional farmers; comprehensively carrying out critical illness insurance for urban and rural residents, and strengthening rural grassroots basic medical care, public health capacity and the building of the rural doctor workforce. It is necessary to promote interconnectivity between designated medical institutions at all levels and the province's new rural cooperative medical system information system, and actively develop a remote consultation system that benefits rural areas; strengthen the standardized management of the rural minimum living security system, comprehensively establish a temporary assistance system, and improve rural social assistance work. It is necessary to implement a unified basic old-age insurance system for urban and rural residents. It is necessary to support the construction of various rural elderly care services and cultural and sports facilities. It is necessary to integrate and utilize existing facilities, venues and resources to build a comprehensive public service platform at the rural grassroots level.
Li Guoxiang believes that China's new urbanization is not developed at the cost of rural decline, but should emphasize common prosperity of urban and rural areas and solve the blocking problems in rural areas in the process of integrated urban-rural development. Accelerating the building of a new countryside also leaves room for development for those who go to cities to learn experience and technology and then return to rural areas. In the future, through the equalized coverage of social security and public services, it will be possible to avoid the amphibious working and living style of farmers and create conditions for realizing people-centered urbanization.