The Ministry of Agriculture reports that the absolute income gap between urban and rural residents is still widening.

On the morning of December 23, the 12th session of the standing Committee of the 12th National people's Congress held its second plenary meeting. Entrusted by the State Council, Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu made a report on promoting the construction of a new countryside (hereinafter referred to as the "report").

Han Changfu frankly said in the report that although great progress has been made in the construction of a new countryside in recent years, "agriculture is still a short leg for the simultaneous development of the four modernizations (new industrialization, informationization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization). Rural areas are still short boards for building a well-off society in an all-round way."

It can be expected that for a period of time in the future, the "tight balance" of supply and demand of agricultural products will become the new normal, and the absolute value of the gap between urban and rural areas will widen; for decision-makers, deepening agricultural reform is highly expected, which may help the construction of a new countryside.

"short board" and "short leg"

In his report, Han Changbin quoted the remarks made by the supreme leader during a recent inspection: during his inspection tour of Fujian in November 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that we should not lose the rural end of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and take new steps in building a new countryside.

The reason why the rural area cannot be lost lies in the complexity of the current rural and agricultural problems in China.

On the one hand, there are many new changes in rural areas since October 2005, when the Fifth Plenary session of the 16th CPC Central Committee formally proposed to promote the construction of a new socialist countryside.

There is a lot of contrast in the report. Data show that the country's total grain output reached 1.2142 trillion jin in 2014, exceeding 1.1 trillion jin for four consecutive years, achieving a historic "11th consecutive increase". In the past year, the per capita net income of farmers across the country reached 8896 yuan, and the growth of farmers' income also achieved the first "ten consecutive fast" since the reform and opening up. The growth rate exceeded that of urban residents for four consecutive years, and the income ratio between urban and rural residents shrank from 3.33 ∶ 1 in 2009 to 3.03 ∶ 1 in 2013.

"the per capita cash income of farmers in the first three quarters of this year was 8527 yuan, an increase of 9.7 percent in real terms over the same period last year, and the growth rate was 2.8 percentage points higher than that of urban residents." Han Changfu said.

On the other hand, although the momentum of development is good, there is no doubt about the lag of agricultural development and rural construction. Han Changfu frankly said that at present, agriculture is a short leg for the synchronization of the four modernizations, and the countryside is still a short board for building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way.

Taking agricultural production as an example, Han Changfu said that in the future, with the increase in the total population and urban population, the rigid growth in consumption demand for agricultural products will continue for a long time, and the "tight balance" between supply and demand for agricultural products will become the new normal.

At the same time, the situation of land reduction and water shortage will continue, with an annual water shortage of 30 billion cubic meters in agricultural production; weak agricultural infrastructure, many historical debts, and the situation of relying on nature for food has not fundamentally changed, and medium-and low-yield farmland still accounts for 2% of the total area of arable land.

In addition, the contradiction between the rise of agricultural production costs and the decline of comparative benefits is more prominent.

"the prices of factors of production such as land and labor continue to rise, especially labor costs are rising rapidly and agricultural profit margins are being squeezed," says Han Changfu. "some farmers say,'it is better to work hard to grow an acre of land than to go out to work for two days'."

The upside-down price difference of agricultural products has become another "new normal" in the field of rural production. According to a set of data given in the report: in September this year alone, the domestic prices of rice, corn, soybeans and cotton were 34.2%, 58.1%, 35.9% and 16.9% higher than the after-tax prices per ton at major ports, respectively.

From the perspective of farmers' income, although the income of urban and rural residents and the relative ratio of farmers' income in the eastern, central and western regions have gradually narrowed in recent years, the absolute gap is still expanding.

In 2013, the absolute income gap between urban and rural residents reached 18059 yuan, an increase of 10821 yuan over 2005; the per capita net income gap between farmers in the western region and the eastern region reached 5218 yuan, an increase of 2603 yuan over 2005; and the income gap among farmers is also widening. it is worth paying attention to the fact that the average covers most of the situation.

"the system and mechanism for the integration of urban and rural development is not perfect, and there is still a large gap between urban and rural areas in terms of residents' income, infrastructure, basic public services and so on." Han Changfu said.

Complete the confirmation of power in five years

In the face of many problems in agricultural and rural development, the thinking of decision-makers is to develop and reform at the same time.

"in accordance with the requirements of high output efficiency, product safety, resource conservation and environmental friendliness, we will continue to increase policy support for strengthening farmers and benefiting rich farmers, earnestly change the mode of agricultural development, and speed up agricultural modernization. to lay a solid industrial foundation for the construction of a new countryside." Han Changfu said in the report.

It is reported that the Ministry of Agriculture will carry out high-standard farmland construction on a large scale in the next stage, and strive to build 800 million mu of high-standard farmland with concentrated plots and guaranteed harvest by 2020.

At the same time, it will speed up the development of agricultural mechanization, greatly improve production efficiency, and "strive to basically realize mechanization of grain, cotton, oil, sugar and other field crops by 2020."

At the level of rural reform, the further release of reform dividends will become the focus of the work of the agricultural sector in the next stage. According to Han Changfu, some reform measures that have been piloted in recent years will be promoted nationwide one after another.

Taking the confirmation of land rights that has attracted much attention as an example, it is clearly stated in the report that the competent departments will pay close attention to the registration and certification of rural land contractual management rights, and on the basis of steadily expanding the pilot project, it will be basically completed in about five years.

In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture will also cooperate with the standing Committee of the National people's Congress to step up efforts to amend the Land contract Law, give farmers the right to mortgage and guarantee land management rights, allow farmers to participate in the development of agricultural industrialization with management rights, and ensure the legitimacy of the reform at the legal level.

According to our reporter's understanding, another key point of rural reform is that the reform of the rural collective property right system will also be deepened.

According to Han Changfu, in the next step, the Ministry of Agriculture will carry out the "pilot reform of rural collective construction land into the market" and launch the pilot reform of shareholding rights of rural collective assets.

The report further proposes that decision-making departments will also choose the opportunity to deepen comprehensive rural reform, timely "start the second batch of rural reform pilot areas and tasks, and promote the pilot experiment of rural reform."

Obviously, for a period of time in the future, the new rural construction will still be on a fast lane.