The structural reform of agricultural supply side is speeding up.
Recently, pepper farmers in Liucun Township, Neihuang County, Henan Province are drying pepper. In 2016, the structural reform of the agricultural supply side was vigorously promoted, the supply of green and high-quality agricultural products was further increased, and the structure of agricultural elements, products, technologies, industries, regions and subjects was further optimized. Photo by Liu Xiaokun (Xinhua News Agency)
The structural reform of the supply side of agriculture is a profound change. We should not only move the structure but also the mechanism. We should use reform methods to stimulate vitality and increase motivation. The general direction is to play the role of the "invisible hand" of the market, and rely on market means to mobilize factors, optimize allocation and improve efficiency — —
The just-concluded Central Rural Work Conference and the National Agricultural Work Conference made a series of arrangements for promoting the structural reform of agricultural supply side and accelerating agricultural modernization. In the first year of the 13th Five-Year Plan, what new progress has been made in agriculture and rural economy? Where is the focus of the structural reform of the agricultural supply side in the future?
Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said that this year’s agricultural and rural economy has achieved a good start and played a "ballast stone" role for the overall economic and social development. To promote the structural reform of agricultural supply side, we should aim at optimizing supply, improving quality and efficiency, and increasing farmers’ income, take green development as the guide, focus on structural adjustment, focus on cultivating new kinetic energy, creating new formats, supporting new subjects, and consolidate the good situation of developing agricultural and rural economy.
Agricultural economy "two stables and three advances"
This year, China’s agricultural and rural economy has shown a good trend of stabilizing the middle and improving the quality, and achieved "two stabilities and three advances". "Two stabilities" means stable agricultural production and stable farmers’ income. The annual grain output reached 1,232.5 billion Jin, the second highest in history, with sufficient supply of cotton, oil, sugar, meat, eggs, milk and aquatic products. Farmers’ income has grown steadily, and the growth rate is expected to continue to be higher than that of urban residents. The "three advances" are the orderly advancement of agricultural structural adjustment, the striding forward of agricultural green development, and the steady progress of rural reform.
When it comes to the development trend, the data is the most convincing: the grain corn has been reduced by 30 million mu, and the scale of livestock and poultry breeding has reached 56%. New industries and new formats represented by leisure agriculture and rural e-commerce have emerged; The use of pesticides continues to grow at zero, and the use of chemical fertilizers is close to zero for the first time since the reform and opening up, and some places have achieved negative growth; The method of "separation of powers" in rural land was introduced, and the land ownership registration and certification area exceeded 800 million mu, and there were more than 2.7 million new agricultural business entities, accounting for more than 30% of the moderate scale business area.
One of the highlights of this year’s "three rural issues" work is to focus on adjusting and optimizing the agricultural structure. Adjust the planting structure with the focus on corn, the animal husbandry structure with the focus on pigs and herbivorous animal husbandry, and the fishery structure with the focus on protecting resources and increasing income. All localities have vigorously promoted standardized production, built 800 new fruit vegetable and tea standard parks and created 6851 demonstration farms for livestock and poultry aquaculture. We will speed up the construction of the whole-process supervision and traceability system for agricultural products, and newly certify 13,000 agricultural products with "three products and one standard".
Exploring the effective mode of agricultural green development is another bright spot. Since the beginning of this year, China has made a tough battle to control agricultural non-point source pollution around the goal of "one control, two reductions and three basics". We will build 11 high-standard water-saving agricultural demonstration zones, 200 demonstration counties for reducing fertilizer consumption and increasing efficiency, and start a pilot project of 6.16 million mu of cultivated land rotation and fallow. Establish animal husbandry green development demonstration counties and fishery healthy breeding demonstration counties, and the proportion of aquatic healthy breeding demonstration areas will reach 51%. We will carry out pilot projects for comprehensive utilization of livestock manure and straw, and start the establishment of experimental demonstration zones for sustainable agricultural development.
Improve supply quality and efficiency
The central rural work conference regards the structural reform of agricultural supply side as an important part of the structural reform of the whole supply side. Han Changfu believes that the structural reform of agricultural supply side is not only an inevitable choice to solve the current imbalance between agricultural supply and demand structure, but also the only way to improve the comprehensive efficiency and competitiveness of agriculture.
On the one hand, it is urgent to promote the structural reform of agricultural supply side to solve the structural contradiction between supply and demand of agricultural products. At present, the supply of agricultural products in staple goods is large, but there are not many high-quality and brand products, which are not suitable for the rapid upgrading of residents’ consumption. However, the products produced by farmers are not sold at good prices, so it is urgent to promote the change of agricultural products supply from mainly meeting the demand of "quantity" to paying more attention to the demand of "quality".
On the other hand, promoting the structural reform of agricultural supply side faces many favorable conditions. With the bumper harvest of agriculture year after year, the supply of important agricultural products is abundant at present, and there is a material premise to promote reform; With the rapid upgrading of consumption, personalized and diversified consumption has increased rapidly, and the demand potential of high-quality, safe and branded agricultural products is huge, which has guiding power to promote reform; With the integration of international and domestic markets, especially the in-depth implementation of the "Belt and Road" construction, international cooperation in agriculture faces great opportunities, and there is room for development in promoting reform.
How to improve the quality and efficiency of agricultural supply system as a whole? This requires efforts from the production side and the supply side, giving priority to increasing the supply of green and high-quality agricultural products, adjusting and optimizing the structure of agricultural elements, products, technologies, industries, regions and subjects by means of reform and innovation, optimizing the agricultural industrial system, production system and management system, and increasing the adaptability and flexibility of the supply structure.
In terms of specific measures, next year, we will reduce 10 million mu of corn in non-dominant producing areas, carry out pilot projects of grain-to-feed and grain-to-bean subsidies, and expand the planting area of high-quality forage materials such as silage corn and alfalfa. It is necessary to stabilize pig production, coordinate the relationship between pollution control and pig production, optimize the regional layout of pigs in accordance with the requirements of large-scale and efficient development, and guide pig breeding to transfer to areas with large environmental capacity. It is necessary to enlarge and strengthen industries with advantages and characteristics, encourage all localities to strive for advantageous areas of characteristic agricultural products, and develop regional advantageous agricultural products. It is necessary to accelerate rural entrepreneurial innovation, develop new industries, new formats and new models, accelerate the development of modern agriculture in internet plus, and make "double innovation" a new kinetic energy for rural development.
The core goal is to increase farmers’ income.
The core goal of structural reform of agricultural supply side is to increase farmers’ income. Reform should give farmers jobs and money to earn. In the first three quarters of this year, the per capita disposable income of farmers actually increased by 6.5%. Although the growth rate is still higher than that of urban residents, it has obviously slowed down compared with previous years, the lowest in the past 13 years, and it has not exceeded the GDP growth rate for the first time since 2004. It is predicted that the prices of most agricultural products will remain low next year, making it more difficult for farmers to increase their income. It is necessary to effectively improve the comprehensive benefits of agriculture through structural reforms on the supply side of agriculture.
"The structural reform of the supply side of agriculture is a profound change. We can’t just move the structure and the mechanism. We must use reform methods to stimulate vitality and increase motivation." Han Changfu said that the general direction is to play the role of the "invisible hand" of the market and rely on market means to mobilize factors, optimize allocation and improve efficiency. Vigorously promote system reform and mechanism innovation, improve the price formation mechanism of agricultural products, improve the system and mechanism of rational allocation of agricultural resource elements, improve the subsidy system oriented to green ecology, and enhance the marketization and market competitiveness of agriculture.
Focusing on deepening rural reform, the central government has successively issued a series of important documents, taking land system reform as the main line, making long-term and strategic institutional arrangements for relevant reform matters, and approving the pilot reform of farmers’ contracted land, homestead, rural collective construction land and collective assets. The four pillars and eight pillars of rural reform have been basically established.
At present, the pilot of rural reform is gradually expanding. Next year’s focus will be on the reform of "separation of powers" of rural land, the reform of rural collective property rights system, the price formation mechanism of important agricultural products and the reform of purchasing and storage system. The reform of "separation of powers" should explore various forms of realization, so that farmers’ contracting rights can be stabilized, management rights can be revived, and sleeping rural land assets can be awakened. The province-wide pilot program for the registration and certification of contracted land will be expanded to 28 provinces to ensure that it will be basically completed nationwide by the end of 2018. In the reform of rural collective property rights system, it is necessary to expand the pilot reform of share rights and strive to gain experience in the confirmation of members of collective economic organizations, the quantification of shares and asset management.