How to Build Institutional Support for the Development of Agriculture, Rural Areas and Farmers

Only by incorporating the practice and achievements of deepening rural reform into the track of rule-of-law construction can effective institutional support be built and a favorable policy environment be created for the development of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”.

At present, China's economic development is entering a new normal. As the “12th Five-Year Plan” is about to come to an end and the “13th Five-Year Plan” is about to begin its layout, this year's Central Document No. 1 made a strategic judgment of “four major points” on the overall situation of rural work and put forward strategic thinking and key work in five aspects. This kind of overall arrangement and positioning based on the current and future period of rural work makes this year's Central Document No. 1 unusual.

Stronger agriculture, richer farmers and more beautiful rural areas are the goals and direction of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” development under the new normal. To make agriculture stronger, it is necessary to build modern agriculture and accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development model. For a long time, the agricultural model of pursuing high output with high input has put land resources and the ecological environment under unbearable pressure, and the competitiveness of agricultural products is also very low. To change the dilemma of “the more the land is cultivated, the thinner it becomes; the more fertilizer is applied, the more it increases; and the higher costs rise”, it is necessary to pay more attention to conserving production capacity, to structural optimization, to quality and safety, and to the coordinated use of the two markets. As listed in Document No. 1, it is necessary to strengthen the innovation-driven role of science and technology, shift agricultural development from relying on excessive resource development and extensive utilization to the track of ecological protection and restoration and conservation-intensive resource use, and implement the overall plan for addressing prominent agricultural environmental problems and the plan for sustainable agricultural development, among others.

To make farmers richer, it is necessary to promote increases in farmers' incomes and increase the intensity of policies benefiting farmers. In an environment of slowing economic growth, increasing farmers' transferred employment faces new challenges, and farming income is also squeezed by both rising farming costs and continuously declining international agricultural product prices. Document No. 1 clearly proposes that efforts should be made to maintain the momentum of continuously narrowing the income gap between urban and rural residents under the new normal of economic development, that importance must be attached to giving play to the decisive role of the market in allocating resources, that the price formation mechanism for agricultural products should be improved, and that farmers' incomes should be increased through multiple channels. At the same time, the government's role should be better brought into play, priority should be given to ensuring investment in agriculture and rural areas, the effectiveness of agricultural subsidy policies should be improved, agricultural socialized services should be strengthened, targeted poverty alleviation should be vigorously promoted, and funds benefiting farmers should be used where they are most needed to improve efficiency.

To make rural areas more beautiful, it is necessary to focus on the integrated development of urban and rural areas and further advance the building of a new socialist countryside. At present, the building of a new socialist countryside is moving toward a new stage of “seeing green mountains and clear waters and remembering nostalgia for the countryside”, with richer connotations. In addition to emphasizing greater efforts in rural infrastructure construction such as water, electricity and roads, improving the level of rural public services, and comprehensively advancing the improvement of rural human settlements, this year's Document No. 1 also particularly emphasizes modernization from “things” to “people”. The document proposes strengthening grassroots Party building, innovating the culture of rural worthies, and improving the overall quality of farmers, which are of fundamental significance for nurturing the social and cultural soil of rural areas and cultivating new citizens and new farmers.

In concrete practice, the awkward situations of “reform stops here” and “law does not reach the countryside” often appear in rural areas at the end of governance. Document No. 1 uses a relatively large amount of space to focus on deepening reform and rule-of-law construction. This is the institutional support for achieving the “three more” goals of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee established the principle that major reforms must have a legal basis and laws to rely on, and rural areas should be no exception. Which laws are still effective for the long term, and which laws need work in “enacting, amending and abolishing”, “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” reform also needs to be carried out in an orderly and standardized manner and integrated into the larger chess game of comprehensively deepening reform.

Rural reform is continuously advanced in practice, and the reform achievements obtained need to be timely transformed into legal provisions. In this sense, this year's Document No. 1 launched a new rule-of-law process for rural reform. Only by incorporating the practice and achievements of deepening rural reform into the track of rule-of-law construction can effective institutional support be built and a favorable policy environment be created for the development of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”.