2015 "document No. 1": referring to food security and farmland reform

On February 1, 2015, the full text of the Central Committee's "No. 1 document" was officially released.

The document, entitled "opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on strengthening Reform and Innovation and speeding up Agricultural Modernization", was examined and adopted at the Central Rural work Conference held on December 22 and 23, 2014. and then issued internally to departments at all levels and agriculture-related units.

Zhang Xiaoshan, member of the Agricultural Committee of the National people's Congress and former director of the Institute of Agricultural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the 21st Century Economic report that the 2015 "No. 1 document" talked about many issues, from agricultural modernization to rural governance. it involves almost every field of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, but some core keywords can still be found, which will be given priority in 2015 and in the next few years. These keywords include food security, agricultural land reform, agricultural product price reform and so on.

Ensure food security

Although China has achieved the "eleventh consecutive increase" of grain, food security is still a sword hanging over the government. This issue has received unprecedented attention. At the Central Economic work Conference in 2013, food security was discussed as a major topic, and its importance was highlighted.

In the summary of document No. 1 in 2015, hidden worries about agriculture and food security can be seen in the following sentences: "the cost of domestic agricultural production is rising rapidly, the price of agricultural products is generally higher than that of the international market, and China is short of agricultural resources." under the hard constraints of resources and environment, how to ensure the effective supply and quality safety of agricultural products and improve the ability of agricultural sustainable development? Is a major challenge that must be addressed. "

A person from the Rural economy Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council told the 21st Century Economic report that the theme of the first document in 2015 is agricultural modernization and the reform and innovation of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, and one of the ultimate goals of the two is to achieve national food security. An important indicator of food security is that grain output can be basically self-sufficient, which mainly depends on three means: one is that cultivated land is not reduced, so it is necessary to strictly protect cultivated land, and the other is that the utilization rate of cultivated land does not decrease. For this reason, it is necessary to protect farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain and innovate the management mode of agriculture, so that the land can be transferred to the hands of the main body that is more willing to cultivate land and better able to plant land. The third is to increase per unit yield, which needs to be realized through scientific and technological innovation. Generally speaking, to achieve food security, we need to make efforts in three aspects: land, people, science and technology.

The source said that at present, one of the work that the government has begun to carry out is to strengthen the protection of cultivated land, which has been assigned to the relevant departments and implemented in other aspects of the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers as a principle and an important prerequisite.

The "further improvement and implementation of the grain governor responsibility system" put forward in the "No. 1 document" has been sent to all localities as a separate document, and the first one put forward by this opinion is to "resolutely defend the red line of cultivated land." Implement the strictest cultivated land protection system to ensure that the existing cultivated land area is basically stable and the soil quality does not decline.

Prior to this, the relevant departments have begun to deploy the protection of cultivated land.

On January 5, 2015, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly held a video conference in Beijing to deploy and implement the delineation of permanent basic farmland and standardize the management of facility agricultural land. Premier Li Keqiang, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, and Vice Premier Wang Yang gave important instructions on work arrangements. The meeting pointed out that it is necessary to seriously investigate and deal with illegal land use in the name of the development of agricultural facilities, focus on accountability, and ensure that "land use shall not be changed and unauthorized use of land for other non-agricultural construction shall be prohibited; land use shall not exceed the standard; unauthorized expansion of land use shall be prohibited; the nature of agricultural facilities shall not be changed, and the unauthorized use of agricultural facilities for other operations shall be prohibited."

As early as early November 2014, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture jointly issued the Circular on further doing a good job in the delineation of permanent basic farmland, requiring that the delimitation of permanent basic farmland around 14 cities, including Beijing, will be carried out first, and the national permanent basic farmland delimitation and achievement improvement work will be fully completed by the end of 2016.

Classified implementation of farmland reform

The principle of cultivated land protection has also been extended to the agricultural land reform.

In the "document No. 1" of 2015, it continued to reiterate "the premise of ensuring that the nature of public ownership of land does not change, the red line of cultivated land does not break through, and the interests of farmers are not damaged." on this basis, "prudently and steadily promote the reform of the rural land system."

According to document No. 1, rural land expropriation, the entry of collective construction land into the market, and the pilot reform of the homestead system should be carried out by categories. To formulate measures to narrow the scope of land expropriation. Establish a land value-added income distribution mechanism that takes into account the state, collectives and individuals, and reasonably improve individual income. We will improve a reasonable, standardized and pluralistic security mechanism for land-expropriated farmers. We will grant the power to transfer, lease and buy shares of rural collective construction land in line with planning and use control, and establish and improve market transaction rules and service supervision mechanisms. Protect the rights and interests of farmers' homestead in accordance with the law, reform the way of obtaining farmers' residential land, and explore a new mechanism for farmers' housing security. We will strengthen guidance and supervision over the pilot work, ensure closed operation and controllable risks, and form replicable and popularizing reform achievements while conducting pilot projects, summarizing and improving them.

Han Jun, deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial and Economic leading Group, recently said at the "sixth China Economic Prospect Forum" that the relevant departments are deployed in accordance with the reform plan. Now we are working out policy documents related to the reform of the land system: one is the national guidance on the registration and issuance of contracted management rights and confirming rights of rural land. One is a policy guidance document on the pilot project of rural contracted land management rights and mortgage loans for farmers' housing property rights, and the other is a policy guidance document on the implementation of a long-term land contract relationship. Han Jun said the three guidance documents are expected to be officially released in 2015.

Li Guoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the situation of agricultural product price reform this year has been unprecedentedly grim, mainly due to the sharp decline in international oil prices and bulk material prices. this has led to a more serious upside-down of agricultural prices at home and abroad, and the Chinese government's measures to maintain domestic agricultural prices through price subsidies will face a greater financial burden.

In this regard, the "No. 1 document" in 2015 proposed that it is necessary to sum up the pilot experience of the target price reform of cotton in Xinjiang, Northeast China and Inner Mongolia, improve the subsidy methods, reduce operating costs, and ensure that the subsidy funds are cashed in full and timely to farmers. We will improve the adjustment mechanism for the handling of national grain reserves and strengthen the supervision of grain reserves. We will implement the plan to increase the scale of local grain reserves, establish a storage system for important commodity trading enterprises, and improve the storage system for sugar-making enterprises.

Li Guoxiang said that the first document specifically mentioned the sugar storage system, which may indicate that sugar, as the next category of agricultural product price reform, has been put on the agenda of the decision-making level.