Li Keqiang's "Nongxin" and "Nongjing"

"when he was young, his trousers were covered with mud and his hands were covered with cocoons."

The essence of modernization is to realize the evolution from traditional agriculture to modern industrial society, from agricultural country to industrial country.

Our attitude towards rural reform is to "explore, explore and re-explore".

First of all, it is necessary to find out whether the mayor provides jobs and gives rice bowls to migrant workers, or whether migrant workers prosper the city through employment and then feed the mayor.

Let farmers lead the same good life as city dwellers.

Premier Li Keqiang, who is at ease in the domestic and foreign arena, his first identity into society is a "farmer", and his first "position" is a branch secretary of the production brigade. For four years, he ate and lived with the peasants, not only picking stones and transplanting rice seedlings, but also assigning tasks and keeping scores to the members of the production team every day, "trying to find ways to feed everyone."

Taking this as a starting point, in the following years, whether it was the academic research in his youth or the exploration and practice after taking office, one of the core issues that Li Keqiang paid close attention to is how to make the Chinese peasants who have been facing the loess for 5,000 years "live the same life as city dwellers."

At a meeting a few days ago, Li Keqiang said affectionately to the heads of various localities and departments attending the meeting: "most of us have been farmers and ate the food of farmers. Even if not, our ancestors should have been farmers. We should work for the farmers with feelings. "

In addition to this heavy affection, Li Keqiang has found a "modern" path to improve the lives of farmers. He stressed: to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, we must first enable farmers to have opportunities for vertical mobility and equal development, which is the proper meaning of the socialist country. It is necessary to take reform and innovation as the driving force, give full play to the radiative and driving role of a new type of urbanization, and speed up agricultural modernization.

When he was young, his trousers were covered with mud and his hands were covered with cocoons.

During a visit to Italy in October 2014, Li Keqiang recalled his experience of starvation at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He said: "when I was young, I lived in rural China for many years and personally experienced the difficult times of not having enough to eat and starving." The impression of hunger is unforgettable. "

In 1974, 19-year-old Li Keqiang jumped the queue to become an educated youth at Damiao Commune in Fengyang County, Anhui Province. Because of his strong organizational ability, he soon stood out and became the party branch secretary of the Damiao brigade. The villagers recalled that Li Keqiang, who was "black and thin" at that time, was the best worker among the students. He and the villagers "grow crops together, sweat heavily, and their hands are covered with cocoons."

A villager recalled to the media that at that time Li Keqiang was always "scrambling to work" and sometimes bent over to transplant rice seedlings for a long time, and his waist was so painful that he couldn't help it. "it would be more comfortable to climb on the ridge next to it and roll it twice."

Class 6 of Hefei No. 8 Middle School took a group photo at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing on May 1, 1973. the second from the right in the back row was 18-year-old Li Keqiang.

In addition to carrying such coolies shoulder to shoulder, Li Keqiang was also responsible for assigning tasks and keeping scores for all the members of the brigade. Recalling the experience at the press conference of the two sessions in 2014, he said that he got up early in the morning and stayed up late at night, hoping that every labor force would be given what to do that day, but in the end he still didn't have enough to eat. Later, when the contract system was established and the economy was liberalized, the peasants decided what to do and "solved the problem of food and clothing in a few years."

Four years of educated youth made Li Keqiang form the initial concept of "decentralization" and gave birth to his people-oriented feelings of stepping on the earth. During a group discussion during the "two sessions," he directly asked a grass-roots official what progress had been made in the transformation of the sloping land, "did you win 60 degrees?" During a previous grass-roots inspection in rural Hubei, he braved the snow to climb a steep slope, picked up a handful of soil, rubbed it, and sighed to the owner of the contracted land: "the soil is so thin that you can collect 100 jin a year, right?"

Some media commented that Li Keqiang had a special affection for farmers mainly because when he was young, his trousers were covered with mud and his hands were covered with cocoons.

Li Keqiang inspects the difficulty of planting on hanging slopes in Qingbao Village, Longfeng Town, Enshi, Hubei Province, on December 29th, 2012.

The essence of modernization is to realize the evolution from traditional agriculture to modern industrial society.

On October 30, 2014, Li Keqiang replied to the teachers and students of the first Hope Primary School. "Poverty is terrible, but losing the right to equal access to education is even more terrible," he wrote. "it is urgent to eradicate poverty or it is difficult to achieve it in a short time."

In March 1990, Li Keqiang, as vice chairman of the China Youth Development Foundation, led an inspection team to Jinzhai County, Anhui Province, and selected the site of the country's first "Hope Primary School." Over the past 25 years, Project Hope has raised a total of more than 10 billion yuan, building 18936 Hope primary schools and subsidizing 4.95 million poor students.

Li Keqiang recalled in the letter that when he came here to select the site of the first Hope Primary School in the country, it was the late winter and early spring. "I never thought that the first seed of Project Hope was in the permafrost in the depths of the Dabie Mountains. Breaking the soil has grown into such a towering tree with luxuriant branches and leaves today."

With the simple idea of "reading changes fate", Li Keqiang vigorously promoted the "Project Hope School" in the rural areas of the country. In addition, he began to think more deeply about agriculture, rural areas and farmers. During the period of studying for a master's and doctor's degree in economics at Peking University, his research direction always focused on solving the gap between urban and rural areas.

Li Keqiang's master thesis "Rural industrialization: the Choice in structural Transformation" says that in the past 10 years, the rise and development of China's rural industrialization has made our country embark on a unique road of industrialization and brought about a new situation in the national economy.

Li Keqiang's master thesis (left) and doctoral thesis (right).

In his doctoral thesis on the ternary structure of China's economy, Li Keqiang wrote at the beginning: "so far, the economic development of many countries in the world shows that the essence of modernization is to realize the evolution from traditional agriculture to modern industrial society. From an agricultural country to an industrial country. Therefore, in the process of modernization, a country must first carry out industrialization. "

This is Li Keqiang in his youth, and his thinking on the issue of "letting farmers live a modern life" can also be regarded as the initial embryonic form of his concept of "agricultural modernization" and "new urbanization".

Develop agriculture with industrial thinking and turn the "granary" into a higher-yielding "kitchen"

At a recent meeting of the State Council, Li Keqiang talked about his experience of studying abroad more than 10 years ago. At that time, as a person in charge of Henan Province, he went to Canada to inspect modern agriculture. He noticed that the other party never simply said "Agriculture" when introducing the situation, but always insisted on using a complete phrase "Agriculture Industry" (literally translated as "agro-industry").