This year's central No. 1 document will focus on transforming agricultural development and promoting agriculture, rural areas and farmers
What will this year's central No. 1 document discuss? Transforming agricultural development mode and promoting reform of agriculture, rural areas and farmers
Jiang Yunzhang
Following the convention of the past 11 years, next year's central No. 1 document will still lock onto the “three rural issues” (agriculture, rural areas and farmers), and this time it may take “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode” as its theme to deploy the work on the “three rural issues” for the new year.
Xu Xiaoqing, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, told Economic Observer that at the Central Rural Work Conference to be held late this month, the relevant parties will, around the theme of “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode”, make detailed arrangements for the work on the three rural issues in 2015. In the central No. 1 document to be issued next year, there will also be a more detailed exposition of how to “accelerate the transformation of agricultural development mode”. In addition, the target price reform of agricultural products, the regulation of agricultural land transfer, and the reform of the rural collective property rights system, which agricultural figures generally follow closely, will also be key points of next year's “three rural issues” reform.
The transformation of agricultural development mode covers a very broad scope. According to the requirements of the just-concluded Central Economic Work Conference, agricultural production must shift as quickly as possible from mainly pursuing output growth to placing equal emphasis on quantity, quality and efficiency, focusing on improving competitiveness, focusing on agricultural technological innovation, and focusing on sustainable intensive development, taking the road of modern agricultural development featuring high output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness. The ultimate goal is to ensure food security and continuously increase farmers' incomes.
The Central Economic Work Conference also made clear that improving the target price mechanism for agricultural products, strengthening rural financial services, and regulating the agricultural land transfer market are all key elements in accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode.
Transforming the mode
The central No. 1 document has focused on the “three rural issues” for 11 consecutive years, but with regard to agricultural production and grain production, in the past more emphasis was placed on output and quantity. If the 2015 central No. 1 document takes “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode” as its theme, it is enough to show that the central authorities have shifted from the past one-sided pursuit of agricultural output and quantity to placing greater emphasis on the sustainable development of agriculture, putting the quality and efficiency of agricultural production on an equal footing with output and quantity.
In fact, as early as the report of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China released in October 2007, the central authorities already clearly proposed transforming the agricultural development mode. In the central No. 1 documents of several consecutive years thereafter, it was also repeatedly reiterated that the transformation of agricultural development mode should be advanced. However, judging from agriculture-related data published in recent years by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Land and Resources and others, due to problems such as worsening water and soil pollution and low agricultural production efficiency, the agricultural production environment has shown a trend of deteriorating day by day.
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Land and Resources released the main data of the second national land survey. At present, China's per capita arable land is 1.52 mu, less than half the world average. In addition, about 50 million mu of arable land nationwide has been moderately or heavily polluted. Over a relatively long period, the state will need to spend several tens of billions of yuan each year to restore and remediate arable land polluted by heavy metals.
In April this year, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land and Resources released the latest national soil pollution survey communique. The soil environmental quality of arable land nationwide is worrying, with 16.1% polluted to varying degrees. For this reason, the state will further strengthen the function of soil environmental supervision and plans to establish a lifelong accountability mechanism for soil pollution responsibility.
Besides arable land pollution and ecological pollution, “who will farm the land” is also a difficult problem that many “three rural issues” experts follow extremely closely. Because the returns from farming are relatively low, there are now more than 260 million migrant workers working in cities, and those left in rural areas to farm are basically the elderly, women and children. Even for grain cultivation, where two or three crops could be grown each year in the past, it has now been changed to one or two crops. Behind the “eleven consecutive increases” in the country's total grain output, “who will farm the land” in the future is in fact also a major hidden concern for Chinese agriculture.
⟦NL> For a long time, because agricultural production and grain production have basically still followed the development path of traditional agriculture, achieving output growth including grain through extensive management that relies on consuming resources and inputs, many problems have accumulated in current agricultural production. Judging from the signals just released by the Central Economic Work Conference, the next step, “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode”, in fact means realizing the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture. Specifically, it means “taking the road of modern agricultural development featuring high output, safe products, resource conservation and environmental friendliness”.
Deepening reform
The Central Economic Work Conference made clear that in 2015, under the major premise of “accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode”, various rural reforms must be further deepened. As for the target price reform of agricultural products and the regulation of agricultural land transfer, which agricultural figures generally follow closely, the central authorities also made clear that these will be key points of next year's “three rural issues” reform.
Specifically with regard to the target price reform of agricultural products, this year the state has already launched a pilot cotton target price subsidy scheme in Xinjiang, China, and a pilot soybean target price subsidy scheme in Northeast China and Inner Mongolia. So far, this reform has not involved the three major staple grain varieties of wheat, corn and rice.
As for whether the target price will be extended to other major agricultural product varieties in 2015, the explanation of an unnamed official from the National Development and Reform Commission is that everything depends on how the cotton and soybean reform pilots turn out, and this situation will only gradually become apparent next year. At present, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance and other parties still have no timetable for advancing the reform.
Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, once participated in discussions on the target price reform policy. He said that next year it is possible to implement a sugar target price system in Guangxi, China. On the whole, the pace of advancing the target price reform is expected to be very slow, and the approach to the three major staple grains will be even more prudent.
In terms of land transfer, at the end of September this year, the Central Leading Group for Deepening Reform deliberated and approved the “Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Contracted Management Rights to Develop Moderate-Scale Agricultural Operations” and the “Pilot Plan for Actively Developing Farmers' Share Cooperatives and Empowering Collective Asset Shares”. Although the two documents have not yet been promulgated by the authorities, from the recent public statements of many agricultural officials, one can basically understand that the central authorities have clear restrictions on agricultural land transfer.
Chen Xiwen and Han Jun, deputy directors of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, have both publicly stated that agricultural land transfer must be “moderate”. Regarding the phenomenon in many places of urban industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside and leasing agricultural land over large areas for long periods, both Chen and Han believe that the problem of using agricultural land transfer as a pretext for “de-agriculturalization” and “de-grainization” is now increasingly intensifying, while also squeezing farmers' employment space. It is expected that the authorities will set stricter policy management measures.
In addition, Economic Observer learned from the Development Research Center of the State Council and other sources that the reform of the rural collective property rights system is also an important part of deepening rural reform in 2015, and will involve a series of reforms such as the entry of collective construction land into the market, the rights over farmers' homestead land, and the development of farmers' share cooperatives.