The "withdrawal of counties and districts" in large agricultural counties is bound to affect food security.

Recently, the news that Xinjian County was withdrawn into districts triggered a climax of public opinion on the Internet. The relevant person in charge of the Civil Affairs Department of Jiangxi Province once said that what is currently reported to the State Council for approval is the overall plan of Xinjian County. If the division of districts is approved, Nanchang City can further adjust the division to solve the problem of large stalls in Xinjian County. (People's Daily Online August 3)

The discussion of withdrawing counties into districts can be described as continuous, such as Nanchang County, Yujiang County and other places before. According to media reports, because administrative divisions are far behind urban development, the wind of "withdrawing counties into districts" has quietly blown up in China, and more than 200 counties across the country have "queued up" into districts. So, among the more than 200 counties divided into districts, including Nanchang County, Yujiang County and Xinjian County in Jiangxi Province, are there no?

If so, I think it is not appropriate to withdraw counties and divide them into districts, because these three counties are all large agricultural counties. Although the difference between "county" and "district" is only one word, the connotation changes too much. I remember Wang Runnian, director of the Foreign Propaganda Office and Information Office of Chang 'an District of Xi'an City, said: "Chang 'an withdrew from the county and divided into districts, indicating that Chang' an bid farewell to the agriculture-based development path and integrated into the metropolitan area of Xi'an City, stepping onto a new level of urbanization and industrialization development." This view should be correct. On the other hand, after the establishment of districts, the urbanization process will accelerate, urban investment will expand, agricultural investment will decrease, and even agriculture, rural areas and farmers will subsidize cities in many cases, and agriculture may be basically abandoned.

Under the current system of our country, the focus of county work is in rural areas, among which county agriculture is basically the agricultural product supply base of our cities. Counties focus on rural areas, while urban areas focus on urban work. After the transformation of counties into districts, the urbanization process accelerated, thus shifting the focus to urban construction. For example, Nanchang County, known as the "land of fish and rice" and "granary in the south of the Yangtze River," is a large agricultural county dominated by breeding industry, an important commodity grain production base in China, or a national modern agricultural demonstration zone. Will this function change once the zone is changed? Xinjian County is also a large agricultural county, known as the "land of fish and rice" on the shore of Lake Wu. These large agricultural counties should have given priority to agriculture to ensure food production, but once they were changed to districts and the focus of work shifted, they would no longer give priority to agriculture but to urban construction. In the process of urbanization, cultivated land may be eaten up and villages may be further degraded.

In some places, fertile land with good water sources is used for urban construction, resulting in a sharp decline in fertile farmland. At present, a series of problems have been exposed in the links of land expropriation and farmland supplement. Because the state requires strict implementation of the compensation system for the occupation of cultivated land, some places resort to fraud. For example, a few years ago, Yujiang County expropriated 525 mu of good farmland in the name of "building a high-quality high school campus," but it was later used for real estate development (New Legal Daily, May 20, 2010). In accordance with the Decision on Deepening Reform and Strict Land Management issued by the State Council in 2004, construction units must supplement cultivated land of equivalent quantity and quality for all types of non-agricultural construction approved to occupy cultivated land, and the quantity and quality of supplementary cultivated land shall be converted according to grades to prevent more occupied land from making up for less, dominant land from making up inferior land. Yujiang County supplementary cultivated land in Yujiang County Pingding Township Qianshan Village Yu Village Group, but the reporter investigation found that this "supplementary cultivated land" is actually a piece of red land, can only grow peanuts, its quality can not be compared with the original paddy field. If Yujiang, a large agricultural county, is divided into districts, will it continue to devour fertile farmland?

I found that a large number of counties were large agricultural counties. Take Jiangxi Province as an example, in addition to the above counties, there are Shanggao County, Taihe County and so on. Shanggao County is listed as a key scientific and technological pilot county for grain production increase in China, and is also a "big county for pig transfer in China." Shanggao Purple Garlic has also successfully applied for "National Geographical Indication of Agricultural Products"; while Jitai Plain (also known as Jitai Basin), where Taihe County is located, is one of the most fertile major agricultural areas in China and is still a commodity grain production base in China. A large number of large agricultural counties queue up to withdraw counties into districts and cities, which makes me, a long-term researcher on "agriculture, rural areas and farmers", feel deeply worried. Once these large agricultural counties are no longer dominated by agriculture, they may fall into a situation where agriculture is lost and unable to develop at all. Besides, the state has been vigorously supporting these large agricultural counties. After the focus of work shifts from county to district and city, will the huge amount of money invested be wasted?

Food is the most important thing for the people! Food is an issue that cannot be ignored in a country with a population of 1.3 billion. In fact, it is very difficult for China's total grain output to increase greatly, because the cultivated area is decreasing year by year, the water resources are shrinking, and the pollution of rural land and water resources deserves special attention, which poses a serious threat to the high grain yield. Therefore, I very much agree with Zhang Baowen, member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, that although the contradiction between grain supply and demand in China has eased, the situation of insufficient production and demand still exists, and there are still hidden worries about national food security. A small country importing a large amount of grain will not have an impact on the international grain market, while a country accounting for one fifth of the world's population will have a significant "big country effect" once it imports a large amount of grain, and the international grain market will be turbulent.

So many large agricultural counties have been withdrawn from counties and divided into districts (cities), no longer focusing on agriculture or grain production. Can we not feel worried?