SCIO briefing on the 'No. 1 central document' in 2017
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E-mail China.org.cn, February 6, 2017
People's Daily:
The "No. 1 central document" attracts attention from all walks of life. This is the 14th year in a row that the "No. 1 central document" has been devoted to agriculture, farmers and rural areas. That indicates the continuity, complexity and importance of reform. My question is for Mr. Tang: Compared to previous years, what should we pay special attention to in this year's "No. 1 central document?" Thank you.
Tang Renjian:
This year's "No. 1 central document" came up with some new policy measures in line with being realistic and innovative. These are mainly reflected in three aspects. Firstly, this time the document especially focuses on construction of the "approach, platform and carrier." The main embodiments are the "Three Zones," "Three Parks" and "One Integration."
The "Three Zones" are the functional zone for food production, the protection zone for key agricultural products and the preponderant zone for special agricultural products. The functional zone for food production is designed to secure the safety of the nation's food, such as the major food crops of rice, millet and corn. President Xi Jinping always stresses that Chinese people should have their own bowls to eat from all the time, and the bowls should be filled with as much good Chinese food as possible. The construction of the protection zone for agricultural products is to make sure that China can enjoy basic self-sufficiency in the key agricultural products, including soybean, cotton, rapeseed, sugarcane and natural rubber. Building the preponderant zone for special agricultural products is to meet the demands for variety in the market, in order to improve the comprehensive benefits and competitiveness of China's agricultural sector.
The "Three Parks" refer to the modern agriculture industrial park, the science and technology park, and the pioneer park. The modern agriculture industrial park is to assemble modern productive elements and give play to functional roles of technology integration, industry amalgamation, start-up business platform, and core area that can exert influence on surrounding areas. This will prompt the mutual fusion of functions of agricultural production, processing, logistics, R&D, pilot test and services. The major goal is to form a cluster for modern agricultural industry. Building the science and technology park is to highlight the functions of scientific innovation, science and technology application, experimental demonstration, science and technology services and training, which differs from the industrial park. The goal is to build a high plateau where modern agriculture can innovate. The pioneer park is for the talents who choose to go back to rural areas and their hometowns to advance their career. They need to start up businesses and need innovation; we have to provide necessary platforms for them. Now, many places have built such local pioneer parks, which are quite effective.
"One Integration" refers to the rural integration complex. According to the document, we will support qualified rural areas to promote such integration of circular agriculture, creative agriculture and farming experience, with agricultural cooperatives as the major carrier, while allowing farmers to fully participate and gain revenue (a necessary precondition) from it.
Generally speaking, through construction of "Three Zones," "Three Parks" and "One Integration," we can optimize the industrial structure in the countryside, promote the deep integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, put together the key elements of funds, science and technology, talents and projects in rural areas, and speed up the development of modern agriculture.
The second part, this time, is that the document pay great attention to optimizing the allocation of agricultural resources and elements, proposing policies such as implementing large-scale agricultural water-saving projects, integrating and leveraging funding, and activating and exploiting unused homesteads. Simply put, these are about people, land and money. Lack of water is an outstanding chokepoint for China's agricultural development. Our farmland's effective irrigation coefficient is only 0.53, which is 0.2 points lower than many developed countries. Especially in north, northwest and northeast China, which are main food production regions, the situation of groundwater overuse is very serious. At the same time, the spatial and temporal distribution of water resource is very uneven. So, it is very necessary for us to carry out projects for water diversion, water transfer, and water storage. We will continue such projects in the future. But in the long-term perspective, and looking at China's national situation, to resolve its lack of water and the existence of various high water-consuming issues, the most urgent and effective way is water-saving. Therefore, the document stressed we should handle water-saving as a major point in terms of direction and strategy, and we must accelerate improving and facilitating the agricultural water-saving policies system.
Regarding fund usage, the document presents the concepts of integrating and leveraging. Currently the economic downturn pressure is large, and the financial resources increment is also difficult. So, it is not like before when we could offer large inputs freely in agriculture, farmers and rural areas. In the circumstances, regarding how to increase the government's investment into agriculture and rural areas, the document proposes a modest increase overall. "Integrating" is to overall plan and integrate the stock funds, and to concentrate on doing well the things that should be done. "Leveraging" is to use the fiscal and financial funds as an enhancing ingredient to leverage social and financial capital, in order to obtain more investment in construction of agriculture and rural areas.
As for the policy of land use, we also put forward some new regulations and requirements concerning utilizing idle lands reserved for rural homesteads and allowing villages to sort out saved land to develop rural leisure facilities and tourism businesses.
Thirdly, we believe it is very innovative that the 2017 "No. 1 central document" pays considerable attention to the main role of agriculture and the talents guarantee mechanism. It proposes that we need to develop the trinity of comprehensive cooperation actively and cultivate various rural talents and experts. We have been developing cooperatives for many years and the effect is very good. Our next important measure is to promote the coordinated cooperation in production, in supply and marketing, and in credit.
Besides, during the construction of the beautiful village project and development of rural tourism, I think journalists have found that rural design and rural construction are not standardized and not in accord with the characteristics of the rural landscape. This is because most rural buildings and facilities are designed by urban institutes based on an urban concept. Therefore, the 2017 "No. 1 central document" proposes that universities should design related majors and courses targeting rural planning and rural residential design with the aim of cultivating rural experts and various professionals. Thanks.
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