What are the five important hallmarks of a modern agricultural powerhouse?

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that for China to be strong, agriculture must be strong. As the world's largest producer, consumer and importer of agricultural products, China's problem of being large but not strong in agriculture has become increasingly prominent, with small scale, weak competitiveness and low production efficiency, making it urgent to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of agriculture and achieve the shift from a major agricultural country to an agricultural powerhouse. To this end, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee made the major deployment of "vigorously promoting agricultural modernization," clearly proposing that marked progress in agricultural modernization must be achieved by 2020. So, what are the important hallmarks of a modern agricultural powerhouse?

Judging whether a country is an agricultural powerhouse cannot simply rely on quantitative indicators such as grain output, export volume or total agricultural machinery power. Countries like Japan, South Korea and Israel do not have high grain output, yet they are all recognized agricultural powerhouses. Therefore, I believe that what kind of agricultural powerhouse to build must be based on a country's own national conditions and agricultural circumstances. Our country's agricultural sector is large in volume, but its foundation remains weak, quality and efficiency are still not high, and overall competitiveness is still not strong. Therefore, for China to build itself into an agricultural powerhouse, it must have relatively strong strength in five aspects:

　　First, the supply guarantee capacity must be strong.

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that ensuring national food security and the supply of major agricultural products is the primary task of agricultural development. In recent years, China's grain production has achieved "twelve consecutive years of growth," and the level of effective supply of agricultural products has continued to rise. However, with the increase in total population, the rising proportion of urban residents and the improvement of residents' consumption levels, China's demand for agricultural products will continue to show a rigid growth trend in the future. Therefore, in the process of building an agricultural powerhouse, we must firmly keep the string of food security taut, coordinate the production of important agricultural products such as cotton, oil and sugar, fruits, vegetables and tea, meat, eggs and milk, and aquatic products, and continuously improve agriculture's supply guarantee capacity, ensuring that as long as the market has demand, production can meet it and supply can keep up. We strive to achieve a comprehensive grain (cereal) production capacity of 5.5 million tons by the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan," with the self-sufficiency rate of wheat and rice stabilizing at 100%.

　　Second, the industrial system must be strong.

In recent years, through optimizing agricultural layout, developing agricultural industrialization and adjusting the agricultural structure, the overall quality and competitiveness of China's agriculture have improved greatly, but on the whole it is still large but not strong, abundant but not excellent, with problems such as loose integration of planting and breeding, poor circulation, disconnection between production, processing and sales, and weak capacity for intensive processing of agricultural products. We must vigorously advance supply-side structural reform in agriculture, accelerate industrial transformation and upgrading, vigorously develop new industries and new business forms such as agricultural product processing, leisure agriculture and agricultural e-commerce, transform the industrial chain, upgrade the value chain, make the primary industry larger, the secondary industry stronger and the tertiary industry more dynamic, and accelerate the construction of a modern agricultural industrial system. We strive to initially build a modern agricultural industrial system characterized mainly by coordinated grain, economic crop and feed production, combined planting, breeding and processing, and integrated primary, secondary and tertiary industries by the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan," with the ratio of agricultural product processing industry to agricultural industry reaching 2.4:1 and operating revenue from leisure agriculture reaching 700 billion yuan.

　　Third, the capacity for sustainable agricultural development must be strong.

Green development is an important hallmark of agricultural modernization. In recent years, although China's agriculture has increased production and income year after year, the pressure on resources and the environment has also grown, with prominent problems such as soil erosion, severe overexploitation of groundwater, soil degradation and worsening non-point source pollution, and it has reached the stage where vigorous promotion of sustainable agricultural development is a must. The fundamental way out is to change the agricultural development model and improve the capacity for sustainable agricultural development. It is necessary to make the production process greener, basically establish resource-saving, environment-friendly and ecologically conserving agriculture, ensure that agricultural production no longer uses excessive water, fertilizer and pesticides, achieve major progress in treating agricultural non-point source pollution and resource utilization of waste, and noticeably improve the agricultural ecological environment. We strive to achieve a coverage rate of over 90% for soil testing and formulated fertilization of major crops and over 30% for green prevention and control by the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan."

　　Fourth, agricultural scientific and technological strength must be strong.

Advanced technology is a hallmark of agricultural modernization and also a hallmark of a country's agricultural strength. In recent years, China's agricultural scientific and technological achievements have continued to emerge and the contribution rate of science and technology has steadily increased, but compared with developed countries and with the requirements of modern agricultural development, the gap is still very large. At present, a new round of global scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is surging, and the latest science and technology in fields such as life sciences, information sciences, advanced manufacturing and intelligent control are accelerating their penetration into agriculture, which will have a revolutionary impact on agricultural scientific and technological innovation. We must seize the opportunity, vigorously promote agricultural scientific and technological innovation, and achieve technological leaps in core key technology fields of modern agriculture. We strive to achieve a contribution rate of agricultural scientific and technological progress of over 60% and a comprehensive mechanization level of crop cultivation and harvesting of 70% by the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan."

　　Fifth, the vitality of entities must be strong.

In advancing agricultural modernization, people are key. As young and middle-aged rural labor continues to shift out in large numbers and the quality of the agricultural labor force declines structurally, the questions of "who will farm the land" and "how to farm the land" in the future are already close at hand. To solve these problems, it is necessary to give full play to the main force role of new types of business entities such as large growers and breeders, family farms, farmer cooperatives and agricultural enterprises, rely on new types of business entities and new professional farmers to develop moderate-scale operations in various forms, and fully give play to the leading role of moderate-scale operations in modern agricultural development. We strive to achieve a proportion of moderate-scale land operation in various forms of 40% by the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan," make scale operation the dominant mode of agricultural production, make various new types of business entities the dominant force in agricultural operation, and significantly enhance the degree of intensification, specialization, organization and socialization of agricultural production.