We must unswervingly follow the path of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, December 23 (dispatch) The just-concluded Central Rural Work Conference emphasized that we must unswervingly follow the path of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics and accelerate the transformation of the agricultural development model. This is a major strategic guideline for our country's work on agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and for the period ahead it has pointed out the direction and clarified the path for our country's agricultural and rural work.
Accelerating the advancement of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics is a major practical and historical task. Agricultural modernization is the foundation and support of a country's modernization. To a large extent, how agricultural modernization develops determines the entire modernization process of a country. Looking around today's world, most developed countries are countries with a relatively high level of agricultural modernization, while countries with backward agriculture have rarely entered the ranks of modernized countries.
Whether compared with the past or with other countries in the world, China's agricultural modernization has today achieved remarkable results that are universally recognized. However, compared with the requirements of its foundational position in the national economy, the fragility of China's agriculture is still evident; compared with the rapidly advancing urbanization and industrialization, the contradiction of China's agricultural modernization lagging relatively behind is still very prominent; compared with people's expectations for agricultural modernization as living standards rise, there is still a gap; and compared with the world's advanced countries, the potential of China's agricultural modernization is still enormous.
Today, China is in the stage of transforming traditional agriculture and realizing agricultural modernization. Agricultural growth still has not completely escaped excessive reclamation of land resources and extraction of underground freshwater resources, blindly pursuing the productivity of land and other resources while labor productivity is relatively low, resulting in high agricultural production costs, a lack of market competitiveness for agricultural products, a widening price gap between international and domestic agricultural products, and at the same time bringing many hidden dangers to the safety of agricultural products, excessive consumption of scarce agricultural resources, and difficulty in giving play to agriculture's ecological functions - the common worldwide ailments of modern agriculture.
Looking to the past to understand the present, climbing high to see far. In order to quickly bring China's agricultural modernization into coordinated development with new-type industrialization, urbanization and informatization, more effectively consolidate agriculture's foundational position in the national economy, and better meet people's needs for the multifunctional nature of modern agriculture, we must transform the agricultural development model and accelerate the advancement of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics. This is an urgent task in China's current agricultural and rural work, bearing on the overall situation of national modernization and also on the dreams of hundreds of millions of farmers.
Accelerating the advancement of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics means reversing the blind pursuit of output increases at all costs, and not only focusing on guaranteeing the quantitative supply of major agricultural products but also paying greater attention to guaranteeing the quality and safety of agricultural products. At present, China's supply of agricultural products is abundant, inventory levels are high, and imports face a relatively favorable international environment. Under the new circumstances, China has both the conditions and the need to advance a new round of agricultural structural adjustment and develop the production of high-quality, safe and efficient agricultural products.
Accelerating the advancement of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics means reversing the past approach of overusing agricultural resources, paying greater attention to the protection and rational use of agriculture's natural resources, taking into account both the present and the long term, and moderately reducing the intensity of use of scarce agricultural resources. In ecologically fragile areas where agricultural natural resources have been overused, we must protect territorial resources and biodiversity and give full play to agriculture's ecological restoration and protection functions through approaches such as returning farmland to forest, grassland and wetland and limiting or banning grazing.
Accelerating the advancement of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics means raising the efficiency and competitiveness of China's agriculture, better conserving agricultural resources and using them sustainably, guaranteeing the quality and safety of agricultural products, giving play to agriculture's ecological functions, and developing the primary industry in the traditional sense into a new-type industry compatible with the primary, secondary and tertiary industries, so as to better fulfill the various functions that China's economic and social development assigns to modern agriculture.
Accelerating the advancement of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics - the fundamental path and driving force is innovation. We must aim at the world's new round of agricultural science and technology revolution, closely follow the needs of agricultural modernization, and strengthen scientific and technological breakthroughs in fields such as biological breeding, smart agriculture, agricultural machinery and equipment, ecological and environmental protection, and green grain yield-increasing models. We must inject the blood of innovation into agriculture and give agriculture the wings of science and technology.
Accelerating the advancement of new-type agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics means comprehensively deepening rural reform. Reform is the fundamental driving force of development. In the past, China's agricultural development achieved its successes mainly through reform, and in the future, to further accelerate agricultural modernization, we must still rely on reform. We must closely focus on the decisive role of the market in resource allocation and on better giving play to the role of the government, comprehensively deepen rural reform, stimulate internal driving forces, create a favorable environment, and form a powerful synergy for accelerating agricultural modernization.