Li Keqiang: Advancing agricultural modernization on the basis of family farming
Dear Director-General Graziano,
Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends:
It gives me great pleasure to come to the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in this golden autumn season to attend the events of the 34th World Food Day. Just now, as soon as I entered the FAO building, I saw on the wall of the lobby on the first floor “Food for All” inscribed in many languages——food for all. This is the sacred mission of the FAO and the common goal of all countries in the world. For a long time, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, together with the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, has closely focused on this goal, helping member states develop agriculture in various forms and making outstanding contributions to feeding the billions of people in the world. Here, on behalf of the Chinese government and people, I wish to express high appreciation to the FAO and other institutions, to all of you present and your colleagues for your unremitting efforts, and to express sincere respect for the outstanding achievements you have made!
The theme of this year's World Food Day is “Family Farming: Feeding the World, Caring for the Earth”. I believe this theme is both grounded in reality and far-sighted, and it outlines a beautiful vision for global agricultural development. Relying on family farming to solve the problem of food is also in line with China's reality. More than 2,000 years ago, a Chinese sage said, “Food is the first necessity of the people”, and this has also been a concept upheld by the Chinese people for a long time. As you all know, China has a large population and little arable land per capita. Ensuring that more than a billion people have enough to eat has been our biggest task and once our biggest challenge. When I was young, I lived in China's rural areas for many years and personally experienced the hard years of not having enough to eat. A full meal may soon be forgotten, but the impression left by hunger is unforgettable for life. More than 30 years ago, China's reform and opening up began with rural reform. Through reform, we achieved great agricultural development, with grain output increasing from more than 300 million tons to more than 600 million tons, successfully solving the problem of feeding and clothing the people. One of the most basic lessons here is to develop family farming.
The rural reform in the early 1980s was mainly about implementing the household contract management system. This reform established farming households as the main body of agricultural operation, granted farmers long-term and guaranteed land use rights and operational autonomy, quickly aroused the production enthusiasm of hundreds of millions of farmers, and gave full play to everyone's strength. In just a few years, agricultural production reached a new level. On this basis, hundreds of millions of people were lifted out of poverty and reached the UN Millennium Development Goals ahead of schedule. In the past decade, China's grain output has increased continuously, and this year a bumper harvest is again in sight. In achieving these results, family farming has played an indispensable role.
For more than 30 years, the reason China's family farming has been able to continuously unleash new vitality is also inseparable from innovation in science and technology, policy and other areas. We have established a complete system for extending agricultural science and technology, promoting improved varieties, agricultural machinery and protected agriculture on a large scale. Hybrid rice alone has brought increases of tens of millions of tons each year. We strongly encourage farmer cooperatives, specialized farmers, enterprises and companies, as well as government service organizations, to provide farmers with services such as agricultural machinery operations and the processing and distribution of agricultural products. Every year, hundreds of thousands of agricultural machines migrate back and forth across China like migratory birds. When wheat ripens, large numbers of combine harvesters travel from south to north, chasing the seasons and providing wheat harvesting services for farmers. This not only solves the problem of mechanical operations for farming households, but also improves the efficiency of agricultural machinery use. The Chinese government has also continuously increased agricultural input, supported the construction of agricultural infrastructure and improved production conditions. The effective irrigation rate of farmland has risen to more than 50%, and agriculture's disaster resistance has been continuously enhanced.
We are also soberly aware that the further development of China's family farming faces the constraint of being too small in scale, with an average of only half a hectare of cultivated area per household. When solving the problem of food and clothing, farmers practiced intensive cultivation on the small plots they contracted. But to increase the output and quality of agricultural products on a larger scale, small-scale operation shows its limitations. For China's agricultural production to reach a new level, it must appropriately expand the scale of operation, raise labor productivity and land output rate, and take the path of agricultural modernization. China is in a stage of rapid urbanization. It is estimated that from now until 2020, about 200 million rural people will successively settle in towns in the eastern, central and western regions. This will create conditions for farmers to expand the scale of cultivation, bring farmers more tangible benefits, and also provide greater space for the development of agricultural modernization.
China is a country with a large population and complex national conditions. In advancing agricultural modernization, we will uphold the fundamental position of family operation in agriculture and promote innovation in various forms of agricultural operation. On the basis of strictly protecting farmers' land rights and interests and respecting farmers' wishes, we encourage farmers with the conditions to transfer land operation rights, and encourage farmers to associate and cooperate. In recent years, China's family farms have increased to 870,000, with an average scale of 13 hectares (200 mu), and the number of farmer professional cooperatives has exceeded 1.1 million, becoming an important force and development direction in agricultural modernization. Promoting appropriately scaled operation and developing modern agriculture on the basis of family operation will help better “feed China” and will also contribute to world food security.
The Chinese government attaches great importance to agriculture and has always adhered to basically achieving grain self-sufficiency based on domestic production. At the same time, it also attaches great importance to the sustainable development of agriculture. With arable land and freshwater resources below the world average, we have solved the food problem for nearly 20% of the world's population, which itself reflects a kind of intensification. But we are not satisfied with this and must further promote efficient and intensive agricultural development. At the same time, we will strengthen ecological protection and construction, implement projects such as returning farmland to forest, protecting natural forests, preventing and controlling desertification, conserving water and soil, and managing grasslands, and support farmers in improving soil, reducing pollution and building high-standard farmland on a large scale. Through these efforts, we will promote the sustainable use of agricultural resources, meeting the needs of the present generation while also leaving fertile land, clear waters and blue skies for future generations. Protecting China's ecology is also caring for and protecting the Earth.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
That everyone has food to eat is the most basic right of survival for humanity and the foundation of all human rights. Global agricultural development has made considerable progress, but hunger and poverty remain a “silent crisis” and the “Achilles' heel” that deeply troubles all humanity. At present, more than 800 million poor people in the world still face the threat of insufficient food and malnutrition. Promoting agricultural development and eliminating hunger and poverty remain major challenges facing the world and a common responsibility borne by all humanity. The international community should join hands, strengthen agricultural cooperation, and pay more attention to the demands of developing countries, especially some least developed countries. It should reduce trade protection and strengthen support to least developed countries in agricultural technology, funding and other areas, so as to raise the level of global agricultural production and food security.
China's agricultural cooperation with other countries, especially developing countries, has developed rapidly. In recent years, in nearly 100 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Pacific and other regions, we have established agricultural technology demonstration centers, agricultural technology experiment stations and extension stations, and have sent more than 30,000 person-times of agricultural experts and technicians, while also helping these countries train a large number of agricultural technicians. Our generation of Chinese people has experienced the pain of hunger. We feel the same as those who are still in a state of hunger. We hope to see hunger and poverty eliminated globally, and we are willing to share agricultural technology, experience and agricultural development models with other countries. China's improved hybrid rice seeds have already benefited many countries. Here I announce that in the next five years, the Chinese government will donate 50 million US dollars to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization for agricultural South-South cooperation, and will increase support for the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
As the world's largest developing country, China is at all times a positive force for safeguarding world food security. Although China's further agricultural development faces many difficulties, we will still make unremitting efforts and fulfill our promises through action, mainly relying on our own strength to solve the problem of food. We are willing to forge ahead hand in hand with all countries in the world to jointly create a world free of hunger and poverty and capable of sustainable development.
Just now, the Director-General presented me with a book introducing his country's experience in increasing grain output and reducing hunger. I presented him with an album reflecting the beautiful scenery of nature. Only when people have enough to eat can they have the mood to appreciate natural scenery and pursue higher spiritual goals. Only by laying a solid foundation in food, the most important foundation for human development, can people's material and spiritual lives become better, and can the world become better. Thank you all!