The Significance Behind Accelerating Efforts to Build Up China’s Agricultural Strength

A strong agricultural sector is the foundation of a great modern socialist country. However, the most challenging and arduous tasks we face in building such a country remain in rural areas.

Agriculture not only provides fundamental support for modernization but also affects the quality of modernization.

In promoting modernization, the first priority is still meeting people's needs for food and clothing. These needs are now posing higher demands in terms of the quantity, quality, and diversity of agricultural products.

As people's living standards have improved, agriculture has not only guaranteed our food supply but also fulfilled other important functions, such as ecological conservation, leisure tourism, and cultural heritage.

And as modernization has progressed, these functions have become increasingly important, with the unique value and charm of Chinese agricultural civilization coming to the fore, and more and more city dwellers seeking to experience rural scenery and reconnect with their rural roots.

It is important to recognize that regardless of China's level of urbanization, hundreds of millions of people will continue to reside in rural areas and engage in agricultural work. These people cannot and must not be left behind in the modernization process.

To promote common prosperity and meet people's aspirations for a better life, we must increase China's agricultural strength at a faster pace, build a beautiful countryside, and enable rural residents to become more affluent. We must ensure that people in rural areas can lead better and more prosperous lives.

Although agriculture's contribution to GDP has dropped as modernization has progressed, secondary and tertiary industries which are closely associated with agriculture have expanded and grown stronger, and the fundamental and strategic importance of agriculture has become even more evident.

Agriculture, rural areas, and farmers concern multiple sectors and fields and a large section of the population. They offer important support for ensuring stable growth, employment, and prices and hold enormous potential for expanding domestic demand.

To accelerate the creation of a new development dynamic and promote high-quality development, we urgently need to build up the strength of agriculture, promote smooth flows of production factors between urban and rural areas and in the economy as a whole, and activate potential investment demand and consumption drivers in the agricultural sector and countryside.

This will help drive economic growth and create broader and more substantive strategic space for national development.

History shows that great countries have always had strong agricultural sectors. As a populous agrarian country, China must ensure that no pronounced weaknesses emerge in its supply of major agricultural products, key and core agricultural technologies, and industrial and supply chains, if it is to achieve the goal of becoming a great modern nation. Agricultural strength is crucial for reinforcing the foundations of security for a great modern country.

We must therefore ensure both development and security and leverage the strength of our agricultural sector to buttress the foundations of national strength. With agriculture, rural areas, and farmers as a solid cornerstone, we can truly achieve self-reliance in development.