Deepening of the Reform of State Farms Advances, New Steps Taken in Cultivating Modern Agricultural Enterprise Groups

Website News  In 2014, good news poured in on the economic and social development of state farms across the country. The gross domestic product of state farms broke through the 650 billion yuan mark, grain production achieved an “eleventh consecutive increase”, with total output exceeding 72 billion jin. Reforms in various areas advanced in depth, and the overall strength, development vitality and market competitiveness of state farms were significantly enhanced.

In-depth research was carried out on major issues in the reform and development of state farms, and the strategic positioning and direction of reform became clearer. Since the beginning of this year, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to the development of state farm undertakings. Leaders of the State Council listened to a special report on state farm work. The Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform incorporated the promotion of state farm reform and development into the “Implementation Plan for Important Reform Measures of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee (2014-2020)” and the annual work plan. Eight ministries and commissions jointly conducted a comprehensive survey of state farms, conducted in-depth research and promoted the resolution of major issues facing state farm reform and development under the new situation, and made it clear that state farms must closely focus on taking the lead in achieving agricultural modernization and comprehensively building a moderately prosperous society in state farm areas, take the cultivation of large agricultural enterprise groups with international competitiveness as the key lever, strengthen the construction of the main functions of reclamation areas, vigorously advance institutional and mechanism innovation, accelerate the development of modern agriculture, steadily promote state farms “going global”, actively explore new-type urbanization, promote the transformation and upgrading of the state farm economy and sustained and healthy economic and social development, and strive to build state farms into emergency bases that guarantee the supply of important national agricultural products, core sectors that take the lead in achieving agricultural modernization as a whole, and modern agricultural enterprise groups with international competitiveness.

The strategy of joint alliances and joint operations was accelerated, and positive progress was made in cultivating international grain merchants of state farms. In 2014, the plan to cultivate international grain merchants of state farms was launched, the strategy of joint alliances, joint operations and domestic and international “going global” was actively implemented, and through modern business methods such as capital operations, the effective integration of strategic agricultural industry resources among reclamation areas and between reclamation areas and localities was promoted, layout toward the high end of industries such as storage, processing, logistics and marketing was stepped up, the construction of the entire agricultural industry chain was accelerated, and the controlling power and influence of state farm state-owned capital were enhanced.

Over the past year, joint alliances and joint operations among reclamation areas took substantive steps, and non-grouped reclamation areas accelerated corporatization and group-based restructuring. In August, the “China State Farm Seed Industry Alliance” was established with 12 reclamation area seed enterprises, including Heilongjiang Kenfeng, Jiangsu Dahua and Anhui Wanken, each with an annual commercial seed volume of more than 50,000 tons, as the main body; in September, Hainan, Yunnan and Guangdong state farms and the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences formally signed an agreement to establish the “China State Farm Natural Rubber Industry Alliance”; and the “China State Farm Dairy Cattle Farm Alliance”, with the country's advantageous state farm milk source bases and dairy processing enterprises as the main body, was on the verge of emerging. At the same time, reclamation areas such as Chongqing, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Hubei, combining their respective advantages, intensified cooperation around the seed industry, dairy industry and other fields, and achieved remarkable results in building regional industrial companies.

⟦NL> This year, through agricultural socialized service methods such as contracted plowing, harvesting and planting and land trusteeship, about 140 million mu of rural collective land has been radiated and driven forward. Reclamation areas such as Jiangsu and Anhui have shown strong momentum in directly leasing rural land, and the area has now exceeded 10 million mu. Guangdong State Farm accelerated the construction of an integrated industrial layout for natural rubber production, processing, storage and marketing in Southeast Asia and other countries. It has now established 20 enterprises, with an annual processing and storage capacity of 350,000 tons of dry rubber, close to 10% of domestic consumption; Anhui and Hubei state farms, using projects in Zimbabwe and Mozambique as platforms, organized enterprises within their provinces to establish overseas agricultural cooperation and development alliances, actively expanding the scale of agricultural investment in Africa.