Why does the No. 1 Central Document frequently focus on agriculture, rural areas and farmers

The No. 1 Central Document is the first document issued each year by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. The theme focused on in the No. 1 Central Document is often an issue that the country currently needs to pay close attention to and urgently needs to solve, and it holds a programmatic and guiding position in the work of the whole year. Therefore, the documents of past years have all received great attention from all sectors.

However, the No. 1 Central Document has not focused on the “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” issue every year. Looking through the many No. 1 Central Documents since reform and opening up, 17 of them have taken “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” as their theme. These 17 documents were not continuous either; there were interruptions in between.

In the early 1980s, against the backdrop of rural reform advancing in full swing, from 1982 to 1986 the central government issued five No. 1 Central Documents in five consecutive years with agriculture, rural areas and farmers as the theme, making specific arrangements for rural reform and agricultural development at that time. Eighteen years later, starting in 2004, the No. 1 Central Document focused on “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” for 12 consecutive years.

Reviewing these 12 No. 1 Central Documents since the beginning of the new century, some addressed the overall work of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers,” while others specifically addressed special work such as agricultural science and technology, farmland water conservancy, and new socialist countryside construction. The No. 1 Central Document focused on “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” 12 times in a row, highlighting the position of the “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” issue as a “top priority” in China.

Why was the tradition of the No. 1 Central Document involving agriculture interrupted in the 1980s? On this question, there was at that time a nationwide understanding from top to bottom: reform in the 1980s began in rural areas, the basic problems had already been solved, important future problems all lay in the cities, and the focus of work also began to shift from rural areas to cities.

So why, after 18 years, did the No. 1 Central Document once again focus on “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”? Behind this was an even more profound background: at the end of the last century, China's agricultural production environment faced a complex situation, and the growth rate of farmers' income hovered at a low level below 4 percent for several consecutive years. In addition, after more than 10 years of “accelerated running” in urban reform, the development of urban and rural areas became seriously unbalanced, affecting the process of building a moderately prosperous society.

Today, against the background of China's economic development entering a new normal, the 2015 No. 1 Central Document continued to focus on “agriculture, rural areas and farmers,” showing that the position of the “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” issue as a “top priority” in China has not weakened, but has instead been further strengthened. At present, China is in a critical period and sprint stage of the four modernizations and the comprehensive realization of a moderately prosperous society. To build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, the rural end cannot be missing. In the four modernizations, the short plank of agriculture must be strengthened. In all the country's work, the important attributes of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” are still very obvious. These factors determine that “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” remain work that the central government urgently needs and focuses on deploying, and it is precisely for this reason that this year's No. 1 Central Document, for the 12th time, locked its target on “agriculture, rural areas and farmers.”