Central Document No. 1 focuses on agriculture, rural areas and farmers, accelerating the transformation of agricultural development methods

Lead: Following the convention of the past 11 years, the 2015 Central Document No. 1 will take “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development methods” as its theme.

The three-day Central Economic Work Conference concluded yesterday. From the information made public by officials, the core agenda of the next Central Rural Work Conference has already been basically clarified, namely “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development methods”. Following the convention of the past 11 years, the 2015 Central Document No. 1 will take “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development methods” as its theme.

According to several experts on “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”, the central government first proposed “transforming agricultural development methods” in the report of the 17th National Congress released in October 2007. Later, in the Central Document No. 1 issued in 2010, it further proposed to “promote the transformation of agricultural development methods”; in the 2014 Central Document No. 1, the formulation was “advance the transformation of agricultural development methods“; by 2015, the new Central Document No. 1, regarding “transforming agricultural development methods”, had yet another further formulation, upgrading from ”promote“ and ”advance“ to “accelerate”. From the subtle evolution in central documents, it can be seen that officials are attaching increasing importance to “transforming agricultural development methods”.

Before the Central Economic Work Conference made the meeting contents public, many experts on “agriculture, rural areas and farmers“ had predicted that the 2015 Central Document No. 1 would continue to focus on ”agriculture, rural areas and farmers“, but their predictions of the document's further theme differed, with some believing it would be ”land reform“, some believing it would be ”land circulation“, and others believing it would be ”food security“. It was not until yesterday, when officials released the main tasks of next year's central economic work, that it became known that the theme of the 2015 Central Document No. 1 is most likely to be “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development methods”.