Central Document No. 1 continues to focus on agricultural modernization this year
The 2015 Central Document No. 1 is about to be released. People familiar with the matter revealed that this year's Document No. 1 will focus on "increasing the intensity of reform and innovation, and accelerating agricultural modernization."
The reason Document No. 1 still focuses on agriculture is mainly that agriculture is the weak link in the synchronized development of the new Four Modernizations. Accelerating agricultural modernization is a major task of both practical and historical significance. The person familiar with the matter said that it is necessary to shift as soon as possible from extensive management that mainly pursues quantity and relies on resource consumption to intensive development that gives equal weight to quantity, quality and effect, focuses on improving competitiveness, focuses on agricultural science and technology innovation, and focuses on sustainability.
In terms of promoting farmers' income growth, this year's Document No. 1 proposes ensuring investment in agriculture and rural areas, improving the effectiveness of agricultural subsidy policies, improving the price formation mechanism for agricultural products, strengthening specialized agricultural services, and promoting the integrated development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas. The person familiar with the matter said that to increase farmers' income, it is necessary to extend the agricultural industry chain and increase the added value of agriculture. Therefore, this document encourages vigorous development of specialty planting and breeding, agricultural product processing, and rural services.
Regarding industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside, this year's document requires that the transfer of land management rights must respect farmers' wishes, and that mandatory targets must not be imposed or forced promotion carried out. Admission and supervision measures for industrial and commercial capital leasing farmland should be formulated as soon as possible, and unauthorized changes to agricultural use are strictly prohibited.
It is worth noting that the reform of the rural collective property rights system and the pilot reform of the rural land system are both covered in this year's Document No. 1.
For the former, with regard to resource assets such as land, the focus should be on firmly and effectively carrying out the confirmation, registration and certification of land contractual management rights; for non-operational assets, the focus should be on exploring effective mechanisms for unified collective operation and management that help improve public service capacity; for operational assets, the focus should be on clarifying ownership, converting assets into shares and quantifying them to members of collective economic organizations, and developing various forms of share-based cooperation. The management, supervision and income distribution systems for rural collective "three assets" should be improved.
As for the pilot reform of the rural land system, the document once again emphasizes three prerequisites: the public ownership nature of land must not be changed, the red line for cultivated land must not be breached, and farmers' interests must not be harmed. Pilot reforms of rural land expropriation, market entry of collective operational construction land, and the homestead system should be implemented by category.