Accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas

On November 6th, the headline news section of People's Daily published a signed article titled "Accelerating the Modernization of Agriculture and Rural Areas" written by Liu Guozhong, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council.
The content is as follows:
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Without the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, there will be no modernization of the entire country." The "Recommendations of the CPC Central Committee on Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" (hereinafter referred to as the "Recommendations"), adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, made a special chapter on accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, clarifying the strategic tasks and policy measures for agricultural and rural development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. We must deeply understand, accurately grasp, and comprehensively implement them, so as to accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas and better promote the Chinese path to modernization. The foundation of agricultural production has been continuously strengthened. The comprehensive grain production capacity has remained above 650 million metric tons, and grain output exceeded 700 million metric tons in 2024. The contribution rate of agricultural technological progress reached 63.2%, and the comprehensive mechanization rate of crop cultivation and harvesting exceeded 75%. Overall, agricultural technological innovation has entered the top tier globally. The achievements in poverty alleviation have been continuously consolidated and expanded. Absolute poverty has been historically resolved, and all farmers have simultaneously entered a state of comprehensive prosperity, creating a miracle in human history of poverty reduction. Since the comprehensive victory in poverty alleviation, the achievements have been continuously consolidated and expanded, the industries in poverty-stricken areas have continued to develop and grow, the employment scale of the labor force out of poverty has steadily increased, and the bottom line of preventing large-scale return to poverty has been firmly maintained. Rural production and living conditions have continued to improve. Rural industries have flourished, rural construction initiatives have been deeply implemented, and prominent shortcomings in rural infrastructure and public services have been quickly addressed. In 2024, the per capita disposable income of rural residents reached 23,119 yuan, and the income ratio between urban and rural residents decreased to 2.34:1. Rural reforms have been continuously deepened, and solid progress has been made in the integrated development of urban and rural areas. Standing at a new historical starting point, capitalizing on this momentum to accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas holds significant multidimensional and deep-seated importance.
(1) The modernization of agriculture and rural areas is crucial to the overall progress and quality of the Chinese path to modernization. Accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas is a major task in the comprehensive construction of a socialist modernized country. Due to weak foundations and excessive debts, the instability of the agricultural foundation, the imbalance between urban and rural development, and the insufficient development of rural areas remain significant manifestations of the principal contradiction in society. Agriculture and rural areas continue to be prominent shortcomings in the socialist modernization drive. The process of modernizing agriculture and rural areas directly affects the progress towards achieving the goal of the Chinese path to modernization and the overall level of building a socialist modernized country. It is imperative to accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, focus on the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, and promote the simultaneous basic modernization of agriculture, rural areas, and farmers with the country.
(II) The modernization of agriculture and rural areas is fundamental to building a strong nation. The cornerstone of comprehensively building a modern socialist country lies in the "Three Rural Issues" (agriculture, rural areas, and farmers). Stabilizing the basic foundation of agriculture and safeguarding the "Three Rural Issues" remains our "ballast" in dealing with various risks and challenges. Over the years, we have relied on our own strength to secure China's food supply, ensuring that over 1.4 billion people have enough to eat and eat well. Despite the "storms" in the international grain market, we have remained "steadfast on the fishing platform". In the current complex and severe international environment, China's development faces increasing uncertainties and unpredictable factors. The more we face risks and challenges, the more we need to consolidate the foundation of work related to the "Three Rural Issues". Only by achieving agricultural modernization can food security be guaranteed, and only then can we have sufficient confidence and strategic initiative in advancing the Chinese path to modernization. We must accelerate the modernization of agriculture, expedite the construction of livable and prosperous rural areas, and provide fundamental support for building a strong nation.
(III) The modernization of agriculture and rural areas is related to the well-being of hundreds of millions of farmers. The starting point and ultimate goal of promoting the Chinese path to modernization is to make people's lives better and better. Even if China's urbanization reaches a high level in the future, there will still be hundreds of millions of people living and working in rural areas. On the path to building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, no one should be left behind, and similarly, no one should be left out in the comprehensive construction of a socialist modernized country. We must remember the tremendous contributions made by hundreds of millions of farmers to the revolution, construction, and reform, align with their aspirations for a better life, promote comprehensive rural revitalization, accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, and continuously move towards achieving common prosperity for all people. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, we must promote agricultural modernization and rural modernization in an integrated manner, aiming at the goal of "rural areas basically having modern living conditions", and promote the comprehensive development of farmers to lead a more prosperous and better life.

II. Accurately grasp the basic requirements for accelerating the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. The modernization of agriculture and rural areas is the overall goal of the "Three Rural" work in the new era, and it is a major and urgent strategic task. It is necessary to thoroughly implement the important expositions and instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the "Three Rural" work, strengthen the comprehensive leadership of the Party in the "Three Rural" work, persistently regard solving the "Three Rural" issues as the top priority of the entire Party's work, adhere to prioritizing the development of agriculture and rural areas, adhere to the integrated development of urban and rural areas, and promote a more solid foundation for agriculture, a more prosperous rural area, and a more prosperous life for farmers. In practice, attention should be paid to handling the following relationships well.
(1) The relationship between anchoring on target tasks and maintaining historical patience. Achieving agricultural and rural modernization is a systematic project and a dynamic process, which cannot be rushed or delayed. We must follow the laws of rural construction, promote the learning and application of the experience of the "Ten Million Project" in a deep and practical manner, start with the most urgent practical problems in agricultural and rural development and those most strongly reflected by farmers, identify breakthrough points, prioritize tasks, and gradually make progress and persist over time, accumulating small victories to achieve great success. We must proceed from the actual situation of each region, focus on accomplishing a number of key practical tasks during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, and form a number of landmark achievements in agricultural and rural modernization.
(2) The relationship between unified deployment requirements and promoting according to local conditions. "Every ten miles, the wind is different; every hundred miles, the customs are different." The situation in rural areas of China varies widely. We must scientifically grasp the differences and regularities, and under unified planning and overall deployment, fully leverage the enthusiasm and creativity of various regions. We should start from the basic requirements of agricultural and rural modernization, focus on popularization and inclusiveness, and standards can vary, but there should be no omissions. Based on resource endowments, we should pay attention to regional characteristics, reflect local customs, and create distinctive "Fuchun Mountain Residence Pictures", without adopting a one-size-fits-all approach.
(III) The relationship between preserving agricultural civilization and introducing modern elements. China boasts a splendid and long-standing agricultural civilization. In the process of modernization, it is imperative to ensure that its roots thrive endlessly, maintain the integrity and effectiveness of rural social structures, inherit and promote excellent culture and virtues, and allow agricultural and urban civilizations to complement each other. We must respect history, culture, and ecology, effectively protect cultural heritage such as traditional villages and agricultural customs, retain the local customs, charm, and nostalgia, and absolutely refrain from engaging in large-scale demolition and construction in the name of modernization.
(4) The relationship between government support and guidance and the principal role of farmers. To achieve agricultural and rural modernization, it fundamentally relies on hundreds of millions of farmers. We must always respect the wishes of farmers, fully leverage their principal role and pioneering spirit, and enable them to become participants and beneficiaries of modernization. We should fully leverage the roles of both the government and farmers, employ methods such as demonstration, guidance, and support to rally the strength of the peasant masses, and pay attention to preventing two tendencies: government vacancy and government substitution for farmers, avoiding the situation where "the government does the work while farmers just watch." We should do our utmost and act within our capabilities, fully consider financial sustainability and acceptability to farmers, and resolutely oppose formalism and "image projects." Third, fully implement the strategic deployment to accelerate agricultural and rural modernization. The "Suggestions" systematically deploy key tasks for accelerating agricultural and rural modernization during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. The key is to persevere in implementing them. We should promote the continuous implementation and effectiveness of the decision-making and deployment of the "Suggestions" with a high sense of political responsibility and mission of the times, and promote solid achievements in agricultural and rural modernization.
(1) Enhance the comprehensive productive capacity, quality, and efficiency of agriculture. The fundamental way out for agriculture lies in modernization, which requires continuously improving the comprehensive productive capacity of agriculture. We must adhere to the principle of simultaneously focusing on yield and production capacity, production ecology, and increasing production and income. We should coordinate the development of scientific and technological agriculture, green agriculture, quality agriculture, and brand agriculture, and build agriculture into a modern large-scale industry. We should enhance the supply and guarantee capacity of important agricultural products such as grain. We must implement the strategies of "storing grain in the land" and "storing grain through technology", stabilize the sown area of grain, intensify the implementation of a new round of action to increase grain production capacity by 500 million kilograms, expand the implementation scale of the grain yield improvement project, strengthen the promotion of high-yield and high-efficiency models, enhance the ability to prevent and mitigate agricultural disasters, comprehensively consolidate the foundation of national food security, and ensure that China's rice bowl is held more firmly. We should adhere to the parallel development of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries, develop modern facility agriculture, and build a diversified food supply system. We should continue to promote grain conservation and loss reduction, improve the long-term mechanism for grain and food conservation. We must strictly adhere to the red line of cultivated land. We should strictly manage the balance between occupation and compensation, continue to consolidate the achievements of the "greenhouse house" rectification, resolutely rectify all kinds of illegal and irregular occupation of cultivated land, regulate and orderly carry out the rectification of "non-grainization" of cultivated land, coordinate the optimization of agricultural land layout, and manage abandoned cultivated land according to local conditions. We should promote the construction of high-standard farmland with high quality, strengthen the protection of black soil and the comprehensive utilization of saline-alkali land, and improve the quality of cultivated land. We should accelerate the modernization of agricultural science and technology. In agricultural modernization, seeds are the foundation. We must thoroughly implement the action to revitalize the seed industry, accelerate the development of the national seed industry, and achieve self-reliance and self-control in seed industry technology and seed sources. We should make concerted efforts to tackle key and core technologies, promote collaborative innovation in agricultural science and technology, and enhance the integration and efficiency of good farmland, good seeds, good machines, and good methods. We should promote the high-quality development of agricultural machinery and equipment, accelerate the research, development, and application of high-end intelligent agricultural machinery and equipment suitable for hilly and mountainous areas. We should develop new productive forces in agriculture according to local conditions, expand the application scenarios of artificial intelligence, low-altitude economy, and smart agriculture. We should improve the agricultural management system. We must stabilize land contracting relationships, steadily promote the pilot project of extending the second round of contracting for another 30 years, adhere to the principle of "big stability, small adjustments", and ensure that the original contracting rights of the vast majority of farmers remain stable and smoothly extended. The development of appropriate scale operation in agriculture is the direction of modern agriculture. We should improve the development quality of new agricultural business entities, perfect a convenient and efficient agricultural social service system, and promote the organic connection between small farmers and modern agriculture.
(2) Establish a normalized mechanism for preventing poverty from returning and causing poverty. The "15th Five-Year Plan" period marks the first five years following the transition from consolidating and expanding the achievements of poverty alleviation to effectively connecting with rural revitalization. It is imperative to continuously consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, establish a normalized mechanism for preventing poverty from returning and causing poverty, adhere to targeted assistance, and ensure that large-scale poverty does not return or cause poverty. Improve the normalized assistance mechanism for those at risk of returning to or causing poverty. Establish a sound, unified, standardized, and precise identification system for the normalized monitoring of preventing poverty from returning and causing poverty, improve the identification methods for those at risk of returning to or causing poverty, and achieve early detection, early intervention, and early assistance. Continue to provide assistance to those who have been lifted out of poverty through policy support among the previously registered and registered poor population. Strengthen targeted assistance based on classification, implement corresponding guaranteed support and development-oriented assistance measures according to whether they have labor ability, the degree and type of actual difficulties, and enhance their hematopoietic capacity and endogenous motivation. Provide assistance to underdeveloped areas based on stratification and classification. Consider key counties supported for rural revitalization as assistance units in underdeveloped areas, and continue to provide centralized support in terms of finance, finance, land, talent, infrastructure construction, and public services. Establish and improve an incentive and restraint mechanism for key counties supported for rural revitalization to stimulate self-development motivation. Support underdeveloped areas to continuously improve infrastructure conditions, steadily enhance public service levels, and develop and expand the county economy. Improve normalized assistance systems and mechanisms. Maintain the overall stability of the existing assistance policy system and work system after the transition period, appropriately optimize according to the needs of normalized assistance, and focus on improving assistance efficiency. Solidify the responsibility for normalized assistance, and continue to implement effective methods such as the five-level secretary responsibility system, East-West collaboration, targeted assistance from central units, and the selection and dispatch of first-level village secretaries and work teams.
(III) Promoting the construction of livable, workable, and beautiful villages. Building beautiful homes and living a good life are the expectations and aspirations of hundreds of millions of farmers. We must improve the implementation mechanism of rural construction according to local conditions, promote rural revitalization in a classified, orderly, and regionalized manner, and gradually enhance the completeness of rural infrastructure, the convenience of public services, and the comfort of the living environment. Create high-quality living spaces in rural areas. Adapt to the trend of rural population changes, optimize the layout of villages, industrial structure, and public service allocation, coordinate and optimize the layout of towns and villages, and prevent waste caused by "having villages without people". Enhance the leading efficiency of rural planning, strengthen the design and style control of rural spaces, collaboratively promote the governance of county-level territorial space, and steadily carry out comprehensive land consolidation throughout the region. Continuously improve the rural living environment, persistently advance the fight against agricultural and rural pollution, and with the spirit of perseverance, solve problems such as rural toilet renovation and garbage surrounding villages. Further promote the greening, beautification, and lighting of villages to build beautiful villages. Strengthen the management and maintenance of rural infrastructure. Improve the rural water supply engineering system, promote the consolidation and upgrading of rural power grids, solidly advance the construction of "four good rural roads", continue to implement the renovation of dilapidated houses in rural areas and the seismic resistance renovation of rural houses, persistently implement the digital rural development action, and accelerate the improvement of shortcomings in rural infrastructure construction. Promote the integrated planning, construction, management, and maintenance of county-level infrastructure, extend urban infrastructure to rural areas, coordinate construction and maintenance, and ensure its continuous effectiveness. Promote the quality and efficiency improvement of basic public services in rural areas. Optimize the allocation of regional education resources and improve the quality of compulsory education schools in rural areas. Enhance the service capacity of central township hospitals, strengthen the prevention and control of infectious diseases in rural areas, and improve the long-term mechanism for basic medical insurance coverage for urban and rural residents. Improve the county-village-township three-level elderly care service network and gradually raise the level of basic elderly care security for urban and rural residents. Increase investment and overall allocation of public service resources in counties, villages, and towns, promote the construction of urban-rural school communities and close-knit county-level medical communities, and continuously improve service capabilities and levels. Develop county-level economies with distinctive characteristics. Coordinate new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization, enhance the comprehensive carrying capacity of county towns, promote the functional complementarity and resource element optimization and allocation among counties, villages, and towns. Optimize the industrial structure and spatial layout of counties, build a county-level economic system with county towns as hubs and small towns as nodes, and promote the integrated development of industry, strengthening counties, and enriching people according to local conditions. Develop multiple functions of agriculture, promote the deep integration of rural primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, and cultivate and expand characteristic rural industries. Improve the mechanism for linking and leading farmers, perfect the support policy mechanism for new agricultural business entities linked to driving farmers' income growth, and promote stable income growth for farmers.
(4) Enhance the effectiveness of policies aimed at strengthening agriculture, benefiting farmers, and enriching rural areas. To achieve agricultural and rural modernization, it is necessary to increase policy support for strengthening agriculture, benefiting farmers, and enriching rural areas. It is essential to implement the responsibility of five-level secretaries in promoting rural revitalization, further improve institutional arrangements in organizational promotion, factor allocation, assessment and evaluation, and promote the allocation of human resources, material resources, and financial support towards agriculture and rural areas. Improve the diversified investment mechanism for rural revitalization. Persist in prioritizing agriculture and rural areas in the general public budget, innovate investment and financing mechanisms, improve the diversified investment pattern featuring fiscal priority guarantee, financial focus, and active social participation, and ensure that investment in rural revitalization continues to increase. Protect and mobilize farmers' enthusiasm for farming and grain production. Strengthen price, subsidy, and insurance policy support and coordination, promote the price of important agricultural products such as grain to remain at a reasonable level, and make farming profitable for farmers. Increase compensation for major grain-producing areas, implement horizontal compensation between production and marketing areas at the provincial level, so that major producing areas can benefit from grain production without loss and with enthusiasm. Strengthen the management of grain purchase, sale, and reserves, enhance emergency supply guarantee capabilities, and safeguard the "granary of a great country". Support the development of new rural collective economy. Deepen the reform of rural collective property rights system, strengthen the supervision and management of rural collective funds, assets, and resources, support rural collective economic organizations to provide intermediary services such as production, labor, and land circulation for small farmers and new agricultural business entities, and strictly control rural collective business risks. Improve the mechanism for prioritizing factor allocation. Promote the coverage of urban basic public services for all permanent residents, effectively safeguard the land contracting rights, homestead use rights, and collective income distribution rights of farmers who have settled in cities. Implement the requirement of prioritizing agricultural and rural development, promote bidirectional flow of urban and rural factors, guide the input of production factors such as capital, technology, and talent into rural areas. Economically utilize rural collective commercial construction land, activate and make good use of idle land and houses according to law, and ensure rural development land through classification. Develop and expand the rural talent team, encourage various talents to serve, start businesses, and seek employment in rural areas.