A Review of the Development situation of Agriculture and Rural areas in China

This year, China's agricultural and rural development has continued to improve, grain production has reached an all-time high, the income gap between urban and rural residents has continued to narrow, rural reform has been pushed forward in depth, rural people's livelihood has been improved, and rural society has maintained harmony and stability. The agricultural and rural economy has achieved steady progress, stable quality improvement and stable efficiency at a high starting point.

The grain output has been "continuously increased", providing space for changing the mode of agricultural development.

Grain production data recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics show that the country's total grain output this year reached 1.2142 trillion jin, an increase of 10.32 billion jin or 0.9% over the previous year.

Finally, the "eleventh consecutive increase" of grain output that farmers were looking forward to was heard. Hou Rui, a senior statistician in the Rural Department of the National Bureau of Statistics, believes that stable policies and measures in place have given important support to grain production.

The policy is the "backer" for farmers to grasp and grow grain. Since the beginning of this year, the agricultural "four subsidies" arranged by the central government have been continuously increased. Up to now, the central government has allocated 21.445 billion yuan in subsidies for growing crops, achieving national coverage of rice, wheat, corn and other crops.

Fighting drought and ensuring abundant grain is another feature of this year's bumper grain harvest. According to statistics, from January to September this year, the affected area of crops nationwide was 24899 thousand hectares, down 29 percent from the previous year, and the area of no harvest was 2854 thousand hectares, down 12 percent from the previous year.

The solid infrastructure construction is an important reason for the bumper harvest in the year of severe drought. At present, the contribution rate of water conservancy to grain production in China has reached more than 40%. From 2011 to 2014, the country increased or restored nearly 60 million mu of irrigated area, developed more than 90 million mu of efficient water-saving irrigation, and increased grain production capacity by more than 30 billion kg.

Zeng Yande, director of the planting Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the "11 consecutive increases" in grain production have provided space and room for changing the mode of agricultural development to focusing on both quantity and quality benefits.

The income of farmers is "11 companies faster", and the income ratio of urban and rural residents is expected to be reduced to less than 3 ∶ 1.

With the "eleven consecutive increases" in grain output, farmers' income has achieved "eleven consecutive increases", and the growth rate will exceed that of GDP and the income of urban residents for five consecutive years, and the income ratio between urban and rural residents is expected to shrink to less than 3 ∶ 1. Driven by the planting industry, migrant workers and agricultural products processing industry, farmers' income is no longer limited to the fields, achieving sustained growth.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first three quarters of this year, the per capita cash income of rural residents was 8527 yuan, an increase of 9.7 percent in real terms after deducting prices, while the per capita disposable income of urban residents was 22044 yuan, an increase of 6.9 percent in real terms. The increase of per capita cash income of rural residents is 2.8 percentage points higher than that of urban residents.

With the steady development of agricultural production, the household operating income of farmers is also increasing. Ye Zhenqin, director of the Development Planning Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said: this year, the main body of the new type of agricultural operation has continued to grow, realizing moderate scale operation, and increasing production and efficiency obviously. By the end of June 2014, the transferred area of cultivated land contracted by households nationwide was 380 million mu, accounting for 28.8 percent of the total contracted cultivated land, an increase of 20 percentage points over the end of 2008.

Household operating income has accounted for half of farmers' income. In the first half of the year, the main business income of the above-scale agricultural products processing industry reached 8.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 9.5% over the same period last year, which was 1.4 percentage points higher than that of the industry above the national scale. "the state has made great efforts to develop secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas and promote the intensive processing of agricultural products, which has created conditions for the growth of operating income of rural households." Zeng Yesong, an expert on rural issues at the Central Party School, said.

Leisure agriculture has also become a new channel to increase farmers' income. At present, China has introduced 10 of China's most beautiful villages and 108 Chinese beautiful countryside to the society, and carried out the establishment of national leisure agriculture and rural tourism demonstration counties and demonstration sites. According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of the year alone, the country's leisure agriculture received nearly 500 million tourists, with a business income of nearly 150 billion yuan, a growth rate of more than 10 percent, benefiting 30 million farmers.

Ye Zhenqin believes that the continuous growth of farmers' income has not only improved farmers' production and life, but also created new driving forces and conditions for changing the mode of agricultural development.

The solid and steady progress of rural reform has become a beautiful scenery for the development of agriculture, rural areas and farmers.

Whether it is the "eleventh consecutive increase" of grain output or the "eleventh consecutive rapid increase" of farmers' income, the core driving force is the deepening rural reform.

As early as the beginning of the year, the No. 1 document of the CPC Central Committee made arrangements for comprehensively deepening rural reform. Zhao Yang, an expert on rural issues in the Office of the Central Rural work leading Group, said: to comprehensively deepen rural reform, we should encourage exploration and innovation, and on the premise of a clear bottom line, we should support local governments to try first and respect the practice and creation of the peasant masses; we should take measures in accordance with local conditions, proceed step by step, and refrain from pursuing one-size-fits-all and one-step approach.

Looking back this year, the registration of contracted land has been comprehensively promoted, the reform of the rural homestead system has been steadily promoted, the pilot areas for rural reform and national modern agricultural demonstration areas have been built, the reform of new business entities has been continuously deepened, the pilot reform of the target price of agricultural products has been carried out, and the rural financial system has been innovated.

The central government is working hard on the top-level design of the land system reform. In September, the Central leading Group for comprehensively deepening Reform held its fifth meeting and deliberated the "opinions on guiding the orderly transfer of contracted Management Rights of Rural Land to develop appropriate scale Management of Agriculture" and "the pilot Plan for actively developing Peasants' Stock Cooperation to give Collective assets Stock Rights to Reform". In December, the seventh meeting of the deep reorganization of the Central Committee examined the opinions on rural land expropriation, the entry of collective construction land into the market, and the pilot reform of the homestead system.

The central government pointed out that in order to deepen the reform of the rural land system at the present stage, we should give more consideration to promoting agricultural modernization, solve both agricultural problems and farmers' problems, and embark on a road of agricultural modernization with Chinese characteristics. On the premise of adhering to the collective ownership of rural land, we should promote the separation of the right of contract and the right of management, and form a pattern of the separation of ownership, the right of contract and the right of management and the transfer of the right of management. Yan Zhiyao, chief planner of the Ministry of Land and Resources, said: the "separation of powers" is a major institutional innovation in China's rural land reform, and the rural system reform is bound to greatly liberate the rural productive forces and create institutional conditions for changing the mode of agricultural production.

At present, China's agricultural development is entering a critical period of transformation under the new normal economy. in order to speed up the transformation of the mode of agricultural development and stabilize the situation of continuous improvement in rural areas, we must strive to tap new potential in improving grain production capacity, open up new ways to optimize agricultural structure, seek new breakthroughs in changing the mode of agricultural development, achieve new results in increasing farmers' income, and take new steps in building a new countryside.