Demonstration area leads the leapfrog development of modern agriculture

It is understood that since 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture has identified 283 national modern agricultural demonstration zones in three batches nationwide. Over the past five years, various demonstration areas have carried out multi-level exploration, point innovation, surface demonstration, to achieve key work link by link, a breakthrough in the field of key nodes every year, and the construction of demonstration areas has stepped into the fast lane leading the development of modern agriculture.

The level of material, technical and equipment takes the lead in the country. According to statistics, in 2014, the high-standard farmland area of drought irrigation, waterlogging drainage, square farmland and canals in the demonstration area reached 267 million mu, accounting for more than 50 percent, which is higher than the national average; the comprehensive mechanization level of crop cultivation and harvest reached 75.1 percent, 13.4 percentage points higher than the national average. According to the monitoring and evaluation results of the Ministry of Agriculture in 2014, 20 demonstration zones, including Taicang City, Jiangsu Province, scored more than 75 points, taking the lead in entering the "stage of basically realizing agricultural modernization" and becoming the "bellwether" of agricultural modernization.

Reform and innovation activate the vitality of agricultural development. In 2013, the Ministry of Agriculture, together with the Ministry of Finance and other five departments and units, selected 21 demonstration areas to carry out pilot agricultural reform and construction, so as to create an "experimental field" for agricultural reform. In 2015, the implementation scope of the policy of replacing awards with awards was further expanded, increasing the total amount of awards and subsidies to 100 demonstration zones. Since the implementation of the pilot reform, the demonstration areas have accumulated a lot of fresh experience in order to solve the bottleneck of agricultural development, dare to practice and explore boldly. For example, Zhaodong, Heilongjiang has created various moderate scale forms, such as "trust of land management rights", "bringing land into the community, ensuring bottom dividends," and other western regions such as Tiandong County of Guangxi and Helan County of Ningxia take characteristic agriculture as a breakthrough. at present, it has become a prairie fire to vigorously develop leisure agriculture and rural tourism.

The mode of modern agricultural construction is gradually taking shape. Based on reality, various localities have explored and formed a number of modern agricultural construction models with regional characteristics, in line with the requirements of development, and full of inherent vitality, such as the construction model of modern agriculture in Heilongjiang Reclamation area, the construction model of water-saving ecological agriculture in Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province, the construction model of characteristic agriculture in the mountainous area of Meitan County, Guizhou Province, and the "two regions" agricultural construction model in Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, and so on. These models range from large-scale agriculture suitable for highly mechanized operations to high-efficiency ecological high-quality agriculture relying on a small area, from water-saving agriculture focusing on ecological protection to characteristic agriculture based on mountain conditions, as well as agricultural industrialization clusters, urban modern agriculture, grass-livestock balanced agriculture and other agricultural forms. It provides a replicable and popularized "model" for the development of modern agriculture in the same region and similar development stage.

Demonstration platform effect agglomerates the joint force of development. The platform effect of the demonstration area continues to appear, and the resources and forces of all parties continue to gather on this platform, forming a strong joint force to promote the construction of the demonstration area. The Ministry of Finance expanded the scope of the policy of substituting awards for subsidies in the demonstration zones, allocating a total of 1.46 billion yuan to support the reform and construction of the demonstration zones, with a total of 1 billion yuan in 2015. The National Development and Reform Commission has allocated a cumulative investment of 1.7 billion yuan within the central budget to support the demonstration areas to carry out the construction of high-standard farmland for drought and waterlogging. China Development Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, Postal savings Bank and other financial institutions actively use the demonstration areas to explore new channels of financial support for agriculture, with total credit support reaching more than 90 billion yuan; various localities have also put real money and silver into the construction of demonstration areas.

In the next step, the Ministry of Agriculture will strengthen reform and innovation, science and technology-driven, resource integration and policy support in accordance with the requirements of modern agricultural development with high output, product safety, resource conservation and environment-friendly, so as to create a pole for the development of regional modern agriculture. Demonstration leads the construction of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics, and strive to take the lead in entering the stage of basically realizing agricultural modernization in more than half of the demonstration areas by 2020.