Two-oriented Development is the Proposition of the Times for the Transformation of China's Agricultural Development Mode

After more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China has entered the middle stage of industrialization and the period of rapid urbanization, and agriculture is in the best development period in history. Since the introduction of the "household contract responsibility system" in rural areas, unprecedented tremendous vitality has been unleashed in agricultural development, enabling China to move from an era of food shortage to a new era of fundamentally solving the problem of food and clothing for more than one billion people and building a well-off society in an all-round way. From 2004 to 2006, all provinces in China abolished agricultural taxes in two years, ending the "imperial grain tax" that existed for more than two thousand years in Chinese history, thus solving the biggest problem of agriculture, rural areas and farmers that could not be solved in China's history for thousands of years-agricultural taxation, which became a great milestone in the history of Chinese agricultural development.

Since the beginning of the new century, especially after 2003, although agriculture has been affected by multiple factors such as increasingly tight constraints on resources and environment, complex and changeable economic situation at home and abroad, frequent natural disasters, etc., it is commendable that China has achieved the "11 consecutive increases" in grain output for the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China, which is the fastest period of development in history. Looking back on the history of world agricultural development, only the United States and India achieved "five consecutive increases" in 1975-1979 and 1966-1970 respectively. It can be said that whether measured by historical standards or contemporary world standards, China's agricultural development in recent decades has set a "Chinese benchmark" for the world. These brilliant achievements in agricultural development have laid a solid foundation for the modern transformation of agriculture and made China's agricultural development stand at a new starting point.

However, there is no doubt that grain and agricultural production are over-dependent on resources and factor inputs, paying huge environmental and ecological costs. China's agricultural development is facing unprecedented challenges. First, with the continuous growth of population, the existing agricultural development mode faces the challenge of expanding demand for agricultural products. Despite successive bumper agricultural harvests, international imports are growing. Relevant data show that in 2011, agricultural imports exceeded one-tenth of China's total output, of which soybean imports accounted for 57% of global soybean exports. It is predicted that by 2050, the global population will grow to 9.3 billion, requiring an increase of 680 million tons of grain; China's population will grow to about 1.5 billion, which will exceed the total population of developed countries at that time, and the grain demand will be about 780 million tons and the meat demand will be about 120 million tons. Second, with the reduction of cultivated land and water resources in quantity and quality, the existing agricultural development mode faces the challenge of continuously strengthening resource constraints. As an unchangeable national condition, China's per capita agricultural resources are far below the world average. The per capita forest area, per capita fresh water resources, per capita land area and per capita cultivated area are only 26%, 33%, 36% and 40% of the world average respectively. Agricultural resources per capita are decreasing. Third, with the continuous advancement of economic globalization, industrialization and urbanization, the existing agricultural development mode is facing the challenge of resource competition and rapid increase of domestic and foreign competition pressure. On the one hand, with the acceleration of China's industrialization and urbanization, the competition between rural areas and cities, agriculture and industry for cultivated land, water resources and other resources and factors will become increasingly fierce. On the other hand, labour productivity is low, seriously affecting agricultural competitiveness. China's grain, rice and wheat yields reached the level of developed countries in 2008, and corn yields reached the level of moderately developed countries. However, agricultural labor productivity was about 47% of the world average for the same period, about 2% of the developed country average, and only about 1% of that of the United States and Japan. At the same time, the monopoly position of transnational corporations on international agricultural products market and resource allocation is increasing day by day, and it is more difficult for China's agriculture to compete with developed countries. Fourthly, agricultural development supported by resource expansion has caused a series of problems such as resource destruction, environmental pollution, soil erosion, land desertification, etc. The existing agricultural development mode faces the challenge of rural ecological environment deterioration and agricultural product quality safety. Relevant studies show that in recent years, China's annual application of chemical fertilizers accounts for 30% of the world's total, and the amount of pesticides used per unit area is twice that of developed countries. Every year, about 500,000 tons of agricultural film remains in the soil, and the rural ecological environment is deteriorating day by day.

Every age has its major problems, and solving them will push human society forward. Global warming and energy depletion pose severe challenges to the survival and development of mankind. Building a "resource-saving and environment-friendly society"(hereinafter referred to as "two-oriented society") is the central issue of today's world economic and social development and the problem that the international community is trying to solve. It represents the common ideal of all mankind and the development direction of future society. It is the common mission that no country can ignore. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 16th CPC Central Committee clearly put forward "building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society", and for the first time "building a resource-saving and environment-friendly society" was identified as a strategic task in the long-term planning of national economic and social development. After the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,"Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Urban Agglomeration" and "Wuhan Urban Circle" were identified as comprehensive supporting reform pilot areas for the construction of "two-oriented society" in China, and the construction of "two-oriented society" entered the practical level and was demonstrated and promoted nationwide. The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the major strategic plan of "transforming the mode of economic development", which clearly regards transforming the mode of agricultural development as a major task of transforming the mode of economic development, as the focus and difficulty of national economic transformation. The Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China clearly stated that "accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode" and "establishing a resource-saving and environment-friendly agricultural production system will basically take shape by 2020." The report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further proposed that "ecological civilization construction should be placed in a prominent position, integrated into all aspects and the whole process of economic construction, political construction, cultural construction and social construction, and strive to build a beautiful China and realize the sustainable development of the Chinese nation", thus putting ecological civilization construction in a prominent position for the first time, clearly promoting the construction of "two-oriented society", and realizing green development, low-carbon development and circular development. The ecological function of agriculture is constantly highlighted. Accelerating the transformation of agricultural development mode and realizing sustainable agricultural development will inevitably become an important part of ecological civilization construction. The spirit and policy guidelines of the Central Committee define the content of the times for China's agricultural development in the new period and point out the strategic direction for the transformation of agricultural development mode to "two types".