How can we fight the battle for food security well under the new situation?
The just-concluded Central Rural Work Conference emphasized that in advancing agricultural modernization, we must adhere to making safeguarding national food security the primary task and ensure basic self-sufficiency in grains and absolute security of staple grains.
At present, China's economic development has entered a new normal, and agricultural development has also entered a new historical stage in which the development model urgently needs to be transformed. Although China's grain output has achieved "eleven consecutive increases," it must be recognized that the foundation of food security is not solid: on the one hand, the cost of domestic agricultural production continues to rise, while the prices of agricultural products remain weak, causing the comparative efficiency of agriculture to keep declining, while falling prices of bulk agricultural products on the international market have led to continuous increases in imports. The cost "floor" and price "ceiling" have seriously affected farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain; on the other hand, China's agricultural ecological environment has suffered serious damage, and the use of arable land and water resources is increasingly strained. Grain production has encountered the two "tightening bands" of ecological and resource constraints, and the pressure for sustainable increases in grain output is unprecedented, making it increasingly difficult to safeguard food security.
Food is the first necessity of the people, and grain is the first priority of the nation. Under the current situation in which economic growth has slowed somewhat and economic development has entered a new normal, food security is even more closely related to the healthy development of the economy, to social harmony and stability, and to the improvement of people's livelihoods. We must keep the issue of food security firmly in mind at all times and fight the battle for national food security well.
To fight the battle for food security well, accelerating the transformation of the agricultural development model is fundamental. We must take reform as the driving force and achieve a fundamental transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. We must promote the transformation of grain production from focusing on quantitative growth to placing equal emphasis on total balance, structural optimization and quality safety; promote the transformation of agricultural development from mainly relying on resource consumption to being resource-conserving and environment-friendly; promote the transformation of agricultural production conditions from mainly "relying on the weather for a living" to improving the level of material and technical equipment; and promote the transformation of agricultural producers from traditional farmers to high-quality professional farmers, taking the path of modern agricultural development featuring efficient output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness.
To fight the battle for food security well, strategically we must adhere to the national food security strategy of relying mainly on ourselves, basing ourselves on domestic production, ensuring production capacity, importing appropriately and relying on scientific and technological support. We must firmly, solidly and effectively grasp the key food security work of ensuring basic self-sufficiency in grains and absolute security of staple grains, so that the rice bowl of the Chinese people is always firmly held in our own hands, and so that we always retain the initiative in food security amid complex and changing circumstances.
To fight the battle for food security well, we must strictly protect the red line of arable land. Farmers may shift to non-agricultural work, but arable land must never be converted to non-agricultural use; designating permanent basic farmland is the basic guarantee for ensuring production capacity, and it must be done in accordance with laws and regulations so that farmers "have land to cultivate" and so as to promote "growing grain on good land"; building high-standard farmland that ensures harvests despite drought or waterlogging is a key way to ensure production capacity, and we must intensify comprehensive agricultural development and land consolidation, among other efforts, to comprehensively improve the quality of arable land and the level of land output.
To fight the battle for food security well, we must adhere to the path of connotative development that relies on scientific and technological progress and increases per-unit yields, accelerate the screening and application of a batch of new varieties suited to local characteristics, high-yielding, high-quality and strongly stress-resistant, and give agriculture and grain the wings of science and technology. We must accelerate the process of full mechanization of grain production, vigorously advance deep loosening and land preparation operations by agricultural machinery, and further give play to the role of agricultural machinery as a carrier in invigorating grain production through science and technology.
To fight the battle for food security well, we must do everything possible to raise farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain. We must continue to adhere to the principle of market pricing and improve the grain price formation mechanism. On the premise of protecting farmers' interests, we must promote the gradual shift of the minimum purchase price, temporary storage and agricultural subsidy policies toward a target price system for agricultural products. We must improve subsidy methods, make subsidies more precise and better targeted, and establish a mechanism linking agricultural subsidies to grain production under which "whoever grows grain gets subsidized" and "those who grow more get more subsidies." We must accelerate the improvement of the benefit compensation mechanism for major producing areas, continue to increase rewards for major grain-producing counties, and mobilize the production enthusiasm of major producing areas.
To fight the battle for food security well, we must also accelerate innovation in the agricultural operation system. Accelerating the cultivation of new types of agricultural operation entities and innovating the agricultural operation system are responses to the question of "who will grow grain" and to developing modern agriculture. We must develop appropriately scaled operations, support the development of large grain-growing households, family farms, farmer cooperatives, leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization and socialized service organizations, and actively cultivate new types of agricultural operation entities. We must explore the establishment of a new agricultural operation system based on household contracting, with farming households as the core entities and with multiple entities such as new types of agricultural operation entities, land shareholding cooperatives and agricultural socialized service organizations operating jointly, so as to promote the professionalization, scaling-up and organization of agricultural operations and enhance the capacity for sustainable development of grain production.
To fight the battle for food security well, we must also make coordinated use of both international and domestic markets and both types of resources. Appropriately increasing imports and accelerating agriculture's going global are inevitable choices for safeguarding food security and ensuring the effective supply of important grain varieties. Through appropriate imports, we must balance surpluses and shortages among varieties, meet diversified consumer demand and ease the pressure on domestic resources and the environment. We must explore the implementation of a global agricultural strategy and establish a safe, stable and sustainable global supply network for agricultural products. We must properly manage the scale and pace of imports to prevent concentrated large imports of individual varieties from hurting domestic production and adversely affecting farmers' income growth.