Build China into an Agricultural Powerhouse

Build China into an Agricultural Powerhouse*

December 23, 2022

While drawing up a grand blueprint for building a great modern socialist country, the 20th CPC National Congress unveiled a general plan for agricultural and rural work. To put it briefly, in our work related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people, we need to advance rural revitalization in the next five years, realize basic agricultural modernization by 2035, and build China into an agricultural powerhouse by the middle of the century. This is a plan of strategic importance drawn up by the central Party leadership for building a great modern socialist country in all respects. To build a strong country, we must first strengthen agriculture; a country can only be strong if its agriculture is strong. Without a strong agriculture, there can never be a strong modern country; without agricultural and rural modernization, there can never be a complete socialist modernization. We must clearly understand this strategic plan of the Party Central Committee and prioritize accelerating the development of strong agriculture as a cornerstone in building a great modern socialist country.

Strong agriculture lays the groundwork for building a great modern socialist country. Agriculture is one of our foundations, and if the foundations of a building are not solid, the building will not be stable. No matter how modern our society becomes, guaranteeing a stable supply of food and other important agricultural products for 1.4 billion people always remains our top priority. The people’s aspiration for a better life cannot be fulfilled without agricultural development. The ultimate purpose of building a modern socialist country is to bring a better life to the people. As we advance modernization and achieve greater material prosperity, the people will grow increasingly fond of the green hills and clear waters of the countryside. In addition to ensuring the supply of food and other important agricultural products, agriculture can play a greater positive role in eco-environmental conservation, leisure and sightseeing tourism, and cultural preservation. Agriculture is an industry that employs nearly 200 million people, and the countryside is the permanent home of almost 500 million rural residents. Only when agriculture is developed and rural work is done well, can our rural people live and work in peace and comfort, having a full sense of gain, fulfillment and security.

Without a booming agricultural sector, there would be no high-quality development. We cannot maintain economic stability unless our agricultural sector is robust, our supply of agricultural products is secured, our prices are stable, and our people have peace of mind. In expanding modernization, agriculture and rural areas provide a broad stage on which much work can be done. Modernization for hundreds of millions of rural residents as a whole will unleash enormous creative momentum and consumption potential, giving great impetus to economic and social development. Facilitating smooth flows between industry and agriculture and between urban and rural areas is an important part of our efforts to ensure unimpeded flows in the domestic economy and to strengthen the economy’s resilience and strategic depth. Strengthening agriculture is key to major breakthroughs that will boost domestic demand, stabilize economic growth, and promote development.

Agriculture is also the foundation of our national security. It provides security for life and survival and thus is vital for national security. In today’s world, change on a scale unseen in a century is accelerating, the Covid-19 pandemic has persisted and resurged, external suppression and containment are escalating, and various uncertain and unpredictable factors have multiplied. If something were to go wrong with our agriculture, our food supply would fall into others’ hands, and we would have to rely on others to feed ourselves. Then what use would there be in talking about modernization? Only when we build up our agriculture and make sure our food supply is completely guaranteed can we have the confidence and latitude to maintain stability, respond to changes, and open up new prospects.

At present, agriculture and rural areas remain an area of weakness in our country’s modernization drive. Since the advent of the new era in 2012, the CPC central leadership has followed the tradition of attaching great importance to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people. Building on the work done since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 and particularly since the launch of reform and opening up in 1978, the CPC central leadership has fought a critical battle against poverty and implemented a rural revitalization strategy, working with limited resources to steadily solve the food problems for over 1.4 billion people. As a result, all rural residents have shaken off extreme poverty and joined our society of moderate prosperity in all respects. China’s great achievements in matters related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people have won worldwide recognition.

At the same time, due to inadequate per capita resources, weak foundations, numerous long-standing problems, and other factors, agriculture, rural areas, and rural people still need further support. Compared with new industrialization, informatization, and urbanization, agricultural modernization lags far behind. This mainly manifests in the following areas:
• Our agricultural production efficiency is relatively low, with labor productivity being only 25.3 percent of that in non-agricultural sectors.
• The comparative performance of our agriculture is poor.
• Our agricultural products are notably uncompetitive on the international market, with domestic prices of food and other agricultural products generally higher than those on the international market.
• Rural areas lag behind cities in terms of infrastructure and public services.
• The income ratios and consumption spending ratios of urban and rural residents are 2.5:1 and 1.9:1 respectively.

These are important reasons why the CPC central leadership has given greater weight to advancing rural revitalization and moving faster to boost China’s strength in agriculture.

The basic requisite for building an agricultural powerhouse is to modernize the agricultural sector. The powerhouse we aim to build and the modernization we aim to achieve share the common characteristics of other countries that have already realized agricultural modernization. More importantly, they also possess Chinese characteristics based on our own national conditions. The common characteristics mean that we should follow the general laws of agricultural modernization and build a strong and competitive agriculture that guarantees sound supply with advanced scientific and technological equipment, a robust operating system, and high industrial resilience. The Chinese characteristics mean that we must ground ourselves in our national context, act in line with our resource endowment as a populous country with limited arable land, stay rooted in our long history as a farming civilization, and respond to the call of the times for harmony between humanity and nature. And we must follow our own path of agricultural modernization, rather than imitating other countries’ models.

In my opinion, the Chinese characteristics should include the following aspects:

First, we must rely on our own strength to secure our food supply. With a population of 1.4 billion people, China must, at all times, ensure that its food supply is firmly in its own hands. We need to pay attention to both output and production capacity, both quantity and quality, and both agricultural production and eco-environmental conservation, and we need to make our industrial and supply chains for agriculture more resilient and stable.

Second, we must rely on our two-tiered operational system to develop agriculture. Given the basic reality that our agricultural sector is made up of a vast number of smallholder farmers, we should support both joint and individual farming operations, with household operations as the primary unit. We should provide extensive commercial agricultural services for smallholder farmers, foster new types of agribusiness, and develop appropriately scaled agricultural operations with Chinese characteristics.

Third, we must develop eco-friendly, low-carbon agriculture. Green 1s the fundamental color of agriculture, and ecology is the base of agriculture. We must abandon the old approach of “draining ponds to catch fish”, “burning down forests to hunt game”, “over-watering and overfertilizing crops”, and “large-scale demolition and construction”. We should work to achieve a positive interplay between agricultural production, rural development, countryside living, and ecosystem conservation; make eco-agriculture and a low-carbon countryside a reality; save resources and be environmentally friendly; and keep our waters clear and mountains green.

Fourth, we must carry forward China’s farming civilization. Our country boasts a splendid, time-honored agricultural civilization, and we must ensure that its roots continue to spread. We should make sure our rural social structure and organization are complete and functioning, keep alive and carry forward our cultural heritage and virtues, encourage rural-urban cultural exchanges, promote coordinated material and cultural-ethical progress, and see that our farmers are confident, self-reliant, enterprising, and filled with inner strength.

Fifth, we must make steady progress in pursuing common prosperity. We should work to achieve integrated urban-rural development, make basic public services equally available to both urban and rural residents, and ensure modern standards of living in rural areas, in order to facilitate the well-rounded development of our rural residents and enable them to lead happier and more prosperous lives. In addition, our efforts to build a strong agriculture will also contribute to global endeavors to promote sustainable development and eliminate poverty.

Accelerating the building of China into an agricultural powerhouse is a key strategic goal of our Party concerning agriculture, rural areas, and rural people on our new journey in the new era. We must maintain strategic resolve and make sustained efforts to see things through. At present, it is imperative that we concentrate on the goal of building up China’s strength in agriculture, and make sound plans to advance the work related to agriculture, rural areas, and rural people.

First, we should strengthen top-level design. In devising plans for moving faster to build up China’s strength in agriculture, we should formulate roadmaps and programs to meet the objectives for the next five years, for 2035, and for the middle of the century, and we should make sure these plans carry real regulatory force. We should align new plans with existing ones, maintain continuity in our efforts, and avoid constantly changing our policies and measures. Once made, these plans must be taken seriously and implemented strictly.

Second, we should move forward steadily step by step. The development of an agricultural powerhouse is a long and arduous task, and we must adopt an incremental approach, proceed surely and steadily, and persevere until we accomplish the mission. At present, we should focus on promoting rural revitalization across the board and do what is necessary to build the foundations for long-term benefits.

Third, we should tailor measures to local conditions and seek real outcomes. In accordance with their available resources and stages of development, all localities should leverage their strengths, serve the overall national interests, and make their due contributions. Starting with practical issues that are the most pressing for local agricultural and rural development and that are of the greatest concern to rural residents, they should give full play to the drive, initiative and creativity of farmers, take on tasks one at a time with the determination to see them through, and refrain from launching projects that are grandiose, unrealistic, or driven by vanity.

* Part of the speech at the Central Conference on Rural Work.

(Not to be republished for any commercial or other purposes.)