How New Urbanization Leads the Work on Agriculture, Rural Areas and Farmers

Advancing new urbanization is an important path to resolving the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, a strong support for promoting coordinated regional development, and an important lever for expanding domestic demand and promoting industrial upgrading. Development is an important content and important aspect of transforming the development philosophy, clarifying the development direction, and achieving a shift in work guidance.

In recent years, Rizhao City in Shandong Province has adhered to urban-rural coordination and all-for-one development, industry-city integration and sound interaction, and its urbanization process has been accelerating continuously. Even if the future target of a 70% population urbanization rate is reached, nearly 1 million people will still live in rural areas. To fundamentally resolve the “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” issues and achieve the goal of “one lead, five Rizhao”, new urbanization must be taken as a powerful lever, and the leading role of new urbanization must be given full play, so that agriculture and rural work actively keeps pace with industrialization, informatization, and especially new urbanization, forming a sound development momentum of the “four modernizations” advancing in step and mutually reinforcing each other.

(1) Advance comprehensive supporting reforms in rural areas and accelerate the pace of urban-rural coordination. The focus of new urbanization is urban-rural coordination, reflecting the idea of a single chessboard, breaking the dual structure, and forming a situation of complementary advantages, integration of interests, coexistence and shared prosperity, and sound interaction. At present, two areas of reform must be emphasized: first, advance reform of the household registration management system. It is necessary to accelerate the implementation of the “Opinions on Further Advancing the Reform of the Household Registration Management System” issued by the State Council, establish a unified urban-rural household registration system, fully open household registration in county towns and small towns, and clear away identity obstacles for farmers turning into urban residents. Second, advance reform of the rural land system and the property rights system. By advancing the confirmation, registration and certification of various types of property rights such as land, housing and forest land, and establishing and improving transfer service platforms, farmers can be given a “reassurance pill”, surplus rural labor can be encouraged to work and live in towns and cities, and agriculture can be promoted toward appropriately scaled operations.

(2) Do a good job in building new-type rural communities and raise the level of new urbanization. As a national pilot zone for innovation in rural community management and services, Rizhao City should rightly be at the forefront in community building and institutional and mechanism innovation. In advancing rural community building, attention must be paid to highlighting regional cultural character, preserving rural features, pastoral scenery and local flavor, and respecting farmers' production and living habits and wishes; at the same time, based on the current reality of hollowed-out villages and an aging rural population, planning and layout must be rational, and concentrated residence must be advanced actively and steadily, to prevent rural communities from becoming new “hollow villages”; moreover, it is necessary to study in depth and solve institutional and mechanism difficulties in construction, management and services, so as to accumulate experience for smoothly completing the pilot and carrying out broader extension.

⟦NL> (3) Actively advance the Beautiful and Civilized Countryside Action and build ecological and livable new countryside. The Beautiful and Civilized Countryside Action being carried out by the Rizhao Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government aims to improve the rural living environment in contiguous areas, raise the level of rural civility, promote a steady rise in rural residents' living standards, and bring about a fundamental change in their way of life. This is also an important measure to accelerate the process of new urbanization and achieve in-situ urbanization. On the one hand, it is necessary to accelerate comprehensive improvement of the rural environment focusing on garbage treatment, village and town greening, sewage remediation, mountain protection and river cleaning, and make every effort to build tidy villages, ecological water systems and green mountains, fully highlighting the charm of a rural environment with clear mountains and waters and beautiful livability. On the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the building of rural civility, coordinate the advancement of rural moral construction, cultural benefits for the people and the “new countryside, new life” campaign, focus on improving farmers' civilized quality, push their way of life to achieve a transition from traditional to modern, and raise their happiness index.

(4) Strengthen rural infrastructure and public service construction and advance integrated urban-rural development. Accelerating the process of new urbanization means, on the one hand, enabling the agricultural population that has moved to towns and cities to live the same life as urban residents, and on the other hand, striving to enable the broad masses of farmers who remain in rural areas engaged in agricultural production to live happy lives with rural characteristics. This requires that we must actively advance the extension of infrastructure to rural areas and the coverage of public services in rural areas. In accordance with the principle of urban-rural integration and moderate forward planning, it is necessary to actively promote the upgrading and improvement of infrastructure such as water, electricity, roads and gas, and achieve joint construction and sharing of urban and rural infrastructure. It is necessary to promote the coverage of public services in rural areas, increase investment in rural facilities for science and technology, education, medical care and culture, and strive to achieve equalization of basic public services between urban and rural areas. It is necessary to promote the extension of finance, commerce and logistics to rural areas, improve the rural production and living environment, and provide strong support for agricultural and rural development.

(5) Develop characteristic agriculture and raise the level of agricultural modernization. The support of new urbanization lies in industry; without industrial support, new urbanization is an empty shell. China's agricultural modernization still lags behind industrialization and urbanization, and the same is true of Rizhao City. The prominent manifestations are that the agricultural foundation remains weak, the income gap between urban and rural residents remains relatively large, and the shortcoming of “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” remains obvious. Agricultural modernization is the key and difficult point in the synchronized development of the “four modernizations”. We must attach importance not only to the development of secondary and tertiary industries in urban areas and parks, but also to the development of characteristic agricultural industries, making stronger and larger those characteristic agricultural sectors that have advantageous conditions in the province and even across the country, such as tea, bee keeping, tobacco leaf, sericulture and Chinese medicinal materials, enhancing the self-development capacity of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and continuously raising the level of agricultural modernization.