Agricultural modernization is inseparable from standardization and branding
Agriculture is an important field for expanding domestic demand and adjusting the structure, and it is also an industry that secures the nation and stabilizes the hearts of the people. Properly resolving the "three rural issues" and developing modern agriculture have always been an important deployment of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, and also a basic national policy of our country. In order to better improve the quality and efficiency of our country's agricultural development and realize agricultural modernization at an early date, the State Council recently issued the National Plan for Agricultural Modernization (2016-2020) (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which sets specific goals and tasks for the development of our country's agricultural modernization in the next 5 years and points out the direction for our country's agricultural modernization.
Grain production has achieved twelve consecutive increases, with output exceeding 1,200 billion jin for three consecutive years; the comprehensive mechanization rate for the cultivation and harvesting of major crops has reached 63%, and the coverage rate of improved varieties has exceeded 96%... It should be said that our country's agricultural modernization has already achieved good results. But at the same time, it must also be noted that our country's agricultural development also faces many problems and challenges, such as a decrease in the quantity of cultivated land and a decline in quality, groundwater overexploitation, excessive use of inputs, worsening agricultural non-point source pollution, and increasing risks to the quality and safety of agricultural products.
More importantly, the development of our country's agricultural industry also faces structural contradictions and urgently needs industrial structural transformation and upgrading. Statistics show that agriculture accounts for 9% of our country's GDP, but the agricultural population accounts for 30% of the total population; by contrast, in the United States, agriculture accounts for 1.8% of GDP, and the agricultural population accounts for 2% of the total population. There are also structural contradictions in the supply of agricultural products; for example, in terms of varieties, the import volume of soybeans has been rising year by year. These opportunities and challenges urgently require our country's agriculture to take the path of modernized development.
The fundamental way out for agriculture lies in modernization, and agricultural modernization is the foundation and support of national modernization. Without agricultural modernization, national modernization is incomplete, not comprehensive, and not solid. Advancing supply-side structural reform in agriculture and improving the comprehensive efficiency and competitiveness of agriculture are the main direction for the reform and improvement of our country's agricultural policy at present and for a period to come. Our country's path of modernized agriculture must be industrialized, large-scale, and specialized, and to achieve these, an important foundation is vigorously promoting standardized cultivation, which can both drive agriculture toward modernization and increase output; it is also conducive to ensuring the quality and safety of agricultural products, especially the much-watched quality and safety of grain.
In the "Plan" issued by the State Council this time, "quality" appears 36 times and "standard" appears 28 times, making them among the most frequently appearing terms. This fully reflects that taking safeguarding national food security as the bottom line, paying greater attention to improving comprehensive agricultural production capacity, paying greater attention to adjusting and optimizing the agricultural structure, improving the quality and efficiency of the supply system, and accelerating the formation of effective supply with a balanced quantity, reasonable structure, and excellent quality are important goals, tasks, and principles of our country's agricultural modernization. It also demonstrates the importance and foundational role of quality and safety, and standards and quality, for agricultural modernization.
Promoting agricultural standardization can improve the utilization rate of agricultural infrastructure and drive agricultural industrialization. At present, many rural areas are facing the question of "who will farm the land tomorrow." To solve this problem, industrialization should be relied upon. Industrialization means transforming the agricultural production mode and cultivating new types of agricultural business entities. It is necessary to effectively change the previous extensive, low-level planting methods and actively cultivate large grain growers, rural professional cooperatives, and leading agricultural enterprises. This is inseparable from standardization, including the industrialization model of "company + farmers," agricultural standardization demonstration zones, and so on. Therefore, the "Plan" specifically proposes building a number of large-scale, standardized production bases in advantageous production areas for cotton, oil crops, sugar crops, and sericulture; basically realizing standardization and normalization in the production process of large-scale breeding and planting bases in major "vegetable basket" product production counties across the country, as well as carrying out measures such as demonstrations of standardized production of specialty agricultural products to promote agricultural standardization. At the same time, vigorously promoting the construction of high-standard farmland can also better increase agricultural output. Our country is implementing a high-standard farmland construction project, proposing to focus on major grain-producing areas, give priority to building high-standard farmland that ensures ration security, carry out field projects such as farmland irrigation and drainage facilities, tractor roads, farmland shelterbelts, power transmission and distribution facilities, agricultural machinery storage facilities, and soil improvement, and carry out large-scale transformation of low- and medium-yield farmland, ensuring the completion of 53 million hectares by 2020 and striving to complete 66.67 million hectares of concentrated, contiguous, drought- and flood-resistant, stable and high-yield, ecologically friendly high-standard farmland.
Promoting agricultural standardization can also improve the quality of agricultural products and guide agriculture onto the path of brand-based development. The quality and safety of agricultural products is the foundation and bottom line of industrial development, and improving the supply quality of agricultural products is the goal, task, and direction of industrial development. This is inseparable from the support of standardization and also requires brand-based development. Standards are the yardstick of quality, and brands are the display of quality. By raising standards and improving systems, quality is enhanced; through brand building, the added value of quality is increased and the market competitiveness of the industry is enhanced. Standards, quality, and brands together drive our country's agriculture steadily toward modernization.