Don't forget the new challenges in "Twelve Lianfeng"

The development of agriculture has come to a time of looking back.

In the first half of the year, under the continuous pressure of a slowdown in the growth rate of the national economy, agricultural and rural development once again brought good news. China's summer grain production reached a total output of 141.066 million tons (282.13 billion jin) of summer grain, an increase of 4.47 million tons (8.94 billion jin) over 2014, an increase of 3.3%. Has achieved the good results of "twelve consecutive abundant".

With the acceleration of the construction of modern agriculture in China, the development of agricultural and rural economy has entered the best historical period, but the current development of agricultural and rural areas is still facing a series of deep-seated contradictions and challenges, which need to stand on a new historical starting point. to unremittingly promote the sustainable development of agriculture, we should not ignore agriculture, forget farmers and be indifferent to rural areas at any time.

High grain output climbing

The "twelve consecutive abundant" of summer grain is not easy to come by.

From an industrial point of view, the increase in summer grain production in 2015 benefited from the increase in area and per unit yield. The sown area of summer grain in 2015 was 27692.3 thousand hectares (415.384 million mu), an increase of 110.7 thousand hectares (1.661 million mu), or 0.4 percent, over 2014. Due to the increase in sown area, the output increased by 548000 tons (1.1 billion jin), contributing 12.3 percent to the increase. In 2015, the national summer grain yield per hectare reached 5094.0 kg (339.6 kg / mu), an increase of 141.6 kg (9.4 kg / mu) per hectare over the previous year, an increase of 2.9%. Due to the increase in per unit yield, the yield increased by 3.922 million tons (7.84 billion jin), contributing 87.7% to the increase.

From the external conditions of the industry, first, the state continues to implement the minimum purchase price policy in the main wheat producing areas, and in the autumn of 2014, the minimum purchase price for wheat in 2015 was formulated and announced, which played an important role in stabilizing the sown area of wheat. Second, the central government will continue to increase support for strengthening agriculture and benefiting farmers, and promptly allocate various subsidy funds such as grain direct subsidies and improved seed subsidies in 2015. Third, the structure of sown area is adjusted greatly. Mainly in the main summer grain producing areas, the planting area of cotton and summer harvest rapeseed was reduced, and the planting of summer grain such as wheat was increased.

The "twelve consecutive harvests" of summer grain have laid an important foundation for a bumper grain harvest for the whole year. Looking back over the past 12 years, China's grain production has broken the cycle of "two abundant, one flat and one apology". The reason for the steady increase in grain output is, in vernacular terms, "good policies, strong science and technology, people's efforts, and heaven's help."

Grain output has been continuously climbing high in recent years, which is an important sign that the level of agricultural productivity has reached a new level. In the process of high climbing, it is very difficult for grain production to increase by one point. It can be seen that the 3.3% increase in summer grain this year is very precious.

Farmers' income continues to grow.

Another important sign of the improvement of the agricultural and rural situation in the first half of the year is that farmers' income increased by 8.3% in real terms.

According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first half of the year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents was 5554 yuan, an increase of 9.5 percent in nominal terms over the same period last year, and 8.3 percent in real terms after deducting prices. This growth rate is 1.3 percentage points higher than the GDP growth rate in the same period.

What is gratifying is that the actual increase in farmers' income is 1.6 percentage points higher than that of urban residents in the same period. Prior to this, the growth rate of farmers' income has been higher than that of urban residents for five consecutive years. In the first half of this year, the per capita income gap between urban and rural residents was 2.83, 0.04 less than the same period last year.

"whether we are well-off or not depends on our fellow villagers." In terms of policy, the state has made it clear that it is necessary to speed up the establishment of a long-term mechanism for the sustained increase of farmers' income to ensure that by 2020 the per capita income of farmers will double that of 2010, and the growth rate will continue to be higher than that of GDP and the income of urban residents.

The task of increasing farmers' income is very arduous. First of all, we should do everything possible to increase income channels and constantly narrow the income gap between urban and rural residents. In addition to a stable income for farmers engaged in planting and aquaculture, working in cities is a big part of their income. In the first half of the year, the average monthly income of migrant workers was 3002 yuan, an increase of 9.8 percent over the same period last year. However, there is still a huge difference in the absolute value of income between urban and rural residents. By 2014, the income ratio of urban and rural residents had shrunk to 2.92 ∶ 1 from 3.33 ∶ 1 in the previous year, with an absolute gap of 18952 yuan. China's economy as a whole, rural and urban development is not balanced. As far as rural areas are concerned, it is also the uneven development of various places. By the end of last year, there were still 70.17 million poor people in China's rural areas, accounting for 5.1 percent of the total rural population. Great efforts must be made to reduce poverty in order to build a well-off society in an all-round way.

The poverty alleviation policy is being promoted with unprecedented efforts. The central government recently allocated 13.89 billion yuan in poverty alleviation funds to support poverty alleviation and development in poverty-stricken rural areas. According to the Ministry of Finance, in 2015, the central government implemented the relevant spirit of the outline of China's Rural Poverty Alleviation and Development (2011-2020), and allocated poverty alleviation funds to subsidize local governments by 46.09 billion yuan, an increase of 8 per cent over the previous year.

To increase farmers' income, fundamentally speaking, we should vigorously develop modern agriculture, vigorously develop modern agriculture with high yield, high efficiency, high quality, ecology, and safety, so as to make agricultural operation cost-effective and make agriculture a promising industry. it is a long-term solution to increase farmers' income through industrial efficiency.

The mode of development needs to be changed urgently.

In the first half of the year, the situation of agricultural and rural development was gratifying, and the added value of the primary industry and the intensity of investment made people feel the gratifying weight of the rural situation. According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the added value of the primary industry in the first half of the year was 2.0255 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.5% over the same period last year. In terms of investment intensity, the investment in the primary industry in the first half of the year was 615.9 billion yuan, an increase of 27.8% over the same period last year.

It should also be noted that the accumulation of challenges and contradictions facing China's agricultural development forces agriculture to change its mode of development and take the road of sustainable development. The most prominent challenge and contradiction is the intensification of resource constraints and the red light of the ecological environment. When visiting the grass-roots level, when rural cadres talk about this issue, they often use a catchphrase: "Beautiful people are not handsome, birds singing flowers and fragrant rice are not fragrant."

Macroscopically, China uses 10% of the world's arable land and 6% of the world's fresh water resources to feed 20% of the world's population. Under the circumstances of intensified resource constraints, 1.3 billion Chinese have an annual average of 880jin of grain, 130jin of meat, 1100 jin of vegetables, 60 jin of milk and 40 jin of poultry eggs. While the achievements are huge, it also makes people feel the pressure of resources and environment.

In order to make national food security sustainable, to make farmers' income sustainable, and to make the carrying capacity of resources and environment sustainable, agricultural development must mainly rely on scientific and technological progress from relying on increasing the input of resource elements. In order to promote the transformation of the mode of agricultural development, we should pay more attention to the innovation of agricultural management mode and the construction of modern agricultural management system. Pay more attention to the optimization and adjustment of agricultural industrial structure and the construction of modern agricultural industrial system. Pay more attention to the quality and safety of agricultural products and build a modern agricultural safety system. We will pay more attention to agricultural scientific and technological innovation and enhance the comprehensive production capacity of agriculture. At the same time, we should pay more attention to the overall use of two kinds of resources in the two markets, not only to ensure domestic supply, but also to protect industrial development and farmers' interests.

Walking along this road, the day of "beautiful people with beautiful scenery, fragrant birds and flowers and fragrant rice" will not be far away.