How to break the situation of Agricultural Modernization under the New normal economy

Not surprisingly, this year's Central No. 1 document once again focused on "agriculture, rural areas and farmers." This is the 12th year in a row that the Central Committee has focused document No. 1 on the work of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers."

"this is because under the background that China's economy has entered a new normal, China's agricultural development has also entered a new stage, facing new challenges and contradictions." Cheng Guoqiang, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, said.

The full text of document No. 1, "some opinions on strengthening Reform and Innovation and speeding up the Construction of Agricultural Modernization" is divided into five parts, which attracts attention.

The new challenge forces the top-level design of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers".

From the perspective of statistics, by 2014, China's grain production has increased for 11 consecutive years, and farmers' income has also increased rapidly for 11 consecutive years. However, in the view of some experts on the issues of agriculture, rural areas and farmers, this is a mixed blessing.

At a recent forum, Han Jun, deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial and Economic leading Group, expressed concern. In his view, China's agricultural and rural development is faced with many problems, and the agricultural examination has just begun.

Price is the most obvious manifestation. The prices of almost all staple agricultural products are upside down, that is to say, the prices of domestic agricultural products are much higher than international prices. For example, for imported sugar, although China levies a tariff of 65% on imported sugar outside the quota, the import price is still lower than the domestic price.

This has happened in the last five years. In 2008, only the price of soybeans was inverted.

The direct impact of price inversion is the substantial increase in the inventory of agricultural products. According to the data provided by Han Jun, China's cotton inventory reached 11.48 million tons in 2013, accounting for 60% of the global cotton inventory, and the financial burden is very heavy.

Cheng Guoqiang listed the four major challenges facing agricultural development at present.

First, the economy has shifted from high-speed growth to medium-to-high-speed growth, and profound changes have taken place in the external conditions and internal motivation of agricultural development. How to maintain the sustainable development of agriculture? Where are the new growth points?

Second, the cost of agricultural production has entered a rising channel, and the domestic prices of major agricultural products exceed the international market prices, while the subsidy policy is close to the upper limit. Under the squeeze from both sides, how can agriculture increase efficiency and how can farmers increase their income?

Third, with the shortage of agricultural resources, excessive development, increased pollution, and tighter eco-environmental constraints, how to ensure the effective supply, quality and safety of agricultural products?

Fourth, the accelerated flow of urban and rural factors, agricultural sub-industrialization, concurrent farmers, labor weakening, rural hollow problems have become increasingly prominent, how to speed up the construction of a new countryside in the context of the in-depth development of urbanization?

In Cheng Guoqiang's view, to deal with the new challenges of agricultural and rural development and solve new contradictions and new problems, we must unswervingly strengthen the basic position of agriculture and persist in solving the "three rural" issues as the top priority of the work of the whole party.

"especially in the new stage of agricultural development, to solve more and more complex contradictions and major issues, we must carry out top-level design and overall planning." Cheng Guoqiang said: the 12th document No. 1 issued by the central authorities with the theme of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" precisely reflects this logic and is the clearest and most direct manifestation of the central authorities' insistence on properly solving the "three rural" issues as the top priority of the whole party's work.

From this point of view, this year's Central Committee No. 1 document and the previous 11 Central Committee No. 1 documents are closely linked, progressive and continuous in terms of policy arrangement and layout.

Cheng Guoqiang believes that agriculture has entered a critical period of mechanism innovation, structural transformation and industrial reshaping. The formation of an inverted mechanism for the choice of agricultural policies requires reform and innovation, promoting quality improvement and efficiency, reducing cost and reducing consumption, and speeding up the transformation of the mode of agricultural development to promote intensive management and sustainable development.

In Cheng Guoqiang's view, the biggest highlight of this year's No. 1 document is the proposal to promote the construction of modern agriculture by speeding up the transformation of the mode of agricultural development. It is worth paying attention to that the document puts forward clear requirements and objectives for the development of modern agriculture. In the future, China's agriculture should take the road of modern agricultural development with high output efficiency, product safety, resource saving and environment-friendly, which means to continuously improve the land output rate, resource utilization rate and labor productivity.

"at the same time, we should promote the transformation of agricultural production from focusing on quantitative growth to paying equal attention to total quantity growth, structural optimization, quality and safety, and promoting agricultural development from relying mainly on resource consumption to resource-saving and environment-friendly; we will promote the transformation of agricultural production conditions from relying mainly on nature for food to improving the level of material, technology and equipment, and promoting the transformation of agricultural producers from traditional farmers to high-quality professional farmers." Cheng Guoqiang said that this needs to pay attention to improving competitiveness, agricultural technological innovation and sustainable and intensive development.

First mention of reform and innovation

"the topics focused on in the Central Committee's No. 1 document are often the issues that the country needs to focus on and urgently need to solve at present, and has a programmatic and guiding position in the work throughout the year." Du Xiaoshan, a researcher at the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China Youth Daily that agricultural modernization was mentioned many times in document No. 1 in the past, but reform and innovation was mentioned for the first time this year.

As we all know, agriculture is the foundation of the national economy and the most basic industry among the three major industries, but at the same time, it is also a deficiency in the three major industries. Document No. 1 of this year proposes to promote the simultaneous development of new industrialization, informationization, urbanization and agricultural modernization, strive to tap new potential in improving grain production capacity, and open up new ways to optimize the agricultural structure. we will seek new breakthroughs in changing the mode of agricultural development, achieve new results in increasing farmers' income, take new steps in building a new countryside, and provide strong support for sustained and healthy economic and social development.

This means that the chain of traditional agriculture is stretching, and it is necessary to make up for the shortcomings of agricultural development through the simultaneous promotion of industrialization, informationization and urbanization.

"the document proposes to solve the bottleneck problems in agricultural development from five aspects." Du Xiaoshan said: it includes speeding up the transformation of the mode of agricultural development around the construction of modern agriculture, strengthening policies to benefit farmers' income, deepening the construction of a new countryside around the integration of urban and rural development, and comprehensively deepening rural reform around increasing the vitality of rural development. we will do a good job in the work of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" and strengthen the building of the rule of law in rural areas.

All these reflect the central government's reform and innovation in the work of agriculture, rural areas and farmers. In fact, concrete innovation has already begun.

For example, in the price system of agricultural products, last year, we formally abolished the temporary collection and storage policy for cotton and soybeans, and launched pilot projects to subsidize the target price of soybeans in Xinjiang, the three northeastern provinces and Inner Mongolia.

The target price is not the price understood by ordinary people, but the basis of financial subsidies for agricultural products. According to the production cost of farmers, coupled with reasonable indemnificatory income, to formulate specific subsidy standards.

Take cotton as an example, the market price is 13000 to 14000 yuan per ton, and the target price is 19800 yuan per ton, which is equivalent to about 6000 yuan per ton of cotton financial subsidy.

Although this pilot project lasted only one year, in Han Jun's view, the price of agricultural products has begun to return to the market equilibrium price, and the market has begun to play a decisive role.

How to ensure the increase of farmers' income is also a subject that needs reform and innovation.

Du Xiaoshan told reporters that in the long run, it is necessary to promote the reform of the land system, improve and encourage the transfer of land management rights, encourage appropriate scale operation, and increase the land output rate. In addition, it is necessary to speed up the exploration and development of the rural property rights trading market and realize the registration and certification of land rights as soon as possible. "these are all the basic problems of agriculture, and if these problems are solved, the income of farmers will also be raised."

In addition, urbanization is also a way to improve the living standards of farmers. "Farmers from rural areas in the central and western regions are encouraged to settle in small and medium-sized towns. If these farmers settle down in cities and towns for employment, they can increase their income through employment. At the same time, if the land is transferred to farmers who stay in rural areas for farming, the area of cultivated land per capita will increase, and labor productivity will be improved through large-scale operation. In the form of family farms, agricultural cooperatives, enterprises and farmers, the income of farmers who remain in rural areas can be increased. " Du Xiaoshan said.