On Advancing Rural Vitalisation
On Feb. 3, 2024, the Communist Party of China Central Committee and State Council released their annual No. 1 Central Document, which is a policy statement outlining national priorities that has featured tasks related to agriculture and rural areas high on its agenda since 2004. Entitled "Opinions on Advancing Rural Vitalisation by Learning from the Experience Garnered from the ‘Demonstration in Thousands of Villages, Renovation in Tens of Thousands of Villages' Project" (a livelihood project designed to benefit rural populations that begins with rural environmental improvement and also involves the development of beautified villages over the course of 20 years, hereinafter referred to as the "Thousands-Ten Thousands Project") and Applying It, this year's indicates that development concepts, working methods, and promotion methods associated with the Thousands-Ten Thousands Project should be assimilated and applied.
The 2024 No. 1 Central Document was formulated in order to help ensure national food security, prevent large-scale reversion to poverty among populations that have emerged from it, enhance the development of rural value chains, improve rural development, enhance rural governance, strengthen science and technology and corresponding reform, enhance measures designed to increase rural residents' incomes, and paint a new picture of liveable, business-friendly, and beautified rural areas so as to accelerate the modernisation of agriculture and rural areas in general in addition to advancing Chinese-style modernisation overall. It features the following sections and specifies the following corresponding goals and objectives:
1. Ensuring National Food Security
Great efforts should be made with regard to the production of grain and other important agricultural products. The amount of land area devoted to grain farming should be maintained at a stable level, focus should be placed on increasing yields across large swaths of land, and more than 650 million metric tonnes of grain should consistently be produced every year. Projects designed to increase grain yields per unit of land area and integrate and promote quality land, seed, machinery, and practices should be implemented. Achievements related to the expansion of soybean farming should be consolidated, and the development of high-yield varieties with high oil content should be supported. Agricultural input supply and price stabilisation systems should be improved, and local governments should be encouraged to explore the establishment of dynamic subsidy methods linked to increases in agricultural input prices. The scope of implementation of total cost and farming income insurance policies should be expanded, and national coverage of the three main staple food crops, i.e., wheat, rice, and corn, and orderly expansion of soybean production coverage should be achieved. Local development of specialised agricultural product insurance should be encouraged, and large-scale food monitoring and data systems should be explored and created.
Farmland protection systems should be rigorously implemented. Comprehensive systems that promote the protection of the size, quality, and ecology of cultivated land should be established, and clear-cut tasks pertaining to the long-term protection of basic farmland and arable land in general should be completed in the new round of national land use planning. Sound systems designed to gauge the quality of supplementary cultivated land should be established, and follow-up management and re-evaluation systems should be improved. Governance of degraded farmland should be strengthened, promotion of black soil protection projects should increase, and initiatives designed to improve organic matter in farmland should be implemented. The crimes of illegal occupation of agricultural land and illegal seizure of soil in arable areas should be stringently cracked down upon.
Construction of agricultural infrastructure should be strengthened. Development of high-quality farmland in Northeast China's plains regions, black soil regions, and regions engaged in water conservancy and irrigation should be prioritised. Saline-sodic farmland management and improvement should occur across various regions and in areas suffering from various types of problems, and pilot projects designed to promote the comprehensive utilisation of saline-sodic land should be supported. The construction and modernisation of key water sources, irrigation areas, and flood storage and detention areas should be promoted, and projects such as reservoir hazard removal and reinforcement, small and medium-sized river management, and the construction of small and medium-sized reservoirs should be implemented. Construction and management of small-scale agricultural water conservancy facilities should be strengthened. Short-term warning and medium-to-long-term trend analysis of meteorological disasters should also be strengthened, and long-term agricultural disaster prevention, reduction, and relief systems should be improved. The modernisation and upgrade of facility agriculture should be promoted.
Agricultural technology support should be strengthened. Construction of major agricultural technology innovation platforms should be supported. The vitalisation of the seed industry should be accelerated, research and development of key core technologies pertaining to seed sourcing should increase, and selection, promotion, and production of excellent varieties and those that are in urgent demand should accelerate. Pilot projects covering integrated research and development, promotion, and application of major varieties should be implemented. The industrialisation and expansion of biological farming should be promoted. Conditions pertaining to the development of grassroots agricultural technology promotion systems should be strengthened, and public welfare services functions should be enhanced.
Modern agricultural management systems should be developed. The creation of high-quality production and management teams with small farmers as their cornerstones that adapt to modern agricultural development, focus on new agricultural management entities, and are supported by socialised services should be accelerated. Production and operations should be improved at family farms and agricultural cooperatives, and the ability of cooperatives to serve, support, and empower small farmers should be enhanced. Construction of socialised agricultural service platforms and standardisation systems should be strengthened, emphasis should be placed on improving weak links in key agricultural production areas and among small farmers, and service areas and models should be expanded.
Regulatory capacity pertaining to grain and other important agricultural products should be enhanced. Sound monitoring and early warning systems covering entire agricultural product industry chains should be established, while linkage of regulations in multiple related areas, reserve regulation, and emergency support should be strengthened. Grain storage facility configurations should be optimised, and the level of reserve security should be enhanced. The monitoring and analysis of food and important agricultural product consumption should be strengthened.
Measures designed to reduce food wastage should be promoted. The creation of complete grain conservation and loss reduction chains should be promoted, and long-term working systems should be improved and normalised. Methods of reducing grain loss with harvesting machinery should be explored, and new types of bulk grain transportation and storage equipment should be promoted and utilised. Standards pertaining to proper grain processing should be improved.
2. Preventing Large-Scale Reversion to Poverty Among Populations That Have Emerged from It
Systems that facilitate the monitoring of potential reversion to poverty among populations that have emerged from it and provision of relevant assistance in this area should be implemented in order to prevent such reversion. Interconnection of platforms covering the prevention of the reversion to poverty and the dynamic monitoring of low-income populations should be accelerated, and cross-departmental information integration and sharing should be strengthened. The integration of policies designed to prevent reversion to poverty among low-income rural populations that have emerged from it should be researched and promoted, and corresponding assistance should be normalised.
Industrial and employment assistance should continue to be strengthened. The quality of industries should be enhanced, and their sustainable development should be promoted. Asset management of assistance projects should be strengthened, and eligible assets should be incorporated into the unified management of rural collective assets. The effectiveness of consumption assistance initiatives should be enhanced in order to boost the incomes of rural residents. Employment-oriented initiatives should be promoted in order to prevent reversion to poverty among populations that have emerged from it; full use should be made of employment assistance workshops, public welfare positions, and other channels; and the employment scale of members of the labour force who have emerged from poverty should be stabilised.
Support should increase in key areas. Pilot policies involving the integration of agricultural funds in formerly poverty-stricken counties should be optimised and adjusted in 160 that have become key national rural vitalisation assistance counties, and supervision of the use of integrated funds should be strengthened in this area. State-owned financial institutions should increase financial support for key national rural vitalisation assistance counties. Establishment of normalised assistance systems should be promoted in underdeveloped areas.
3. Enhancing the Level of Rural Industrial Development
Integrated development of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries should be promoted in rural areas. The concept of promoting agriculture by pursuing and developing various industries, enhancing quality, and engaging in green development should be adhered to and comprehensive rural industrial systems that integrate grain, fodder, and economics; meld agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries; connect production, processing, and sales; and combine agriculture, culture, and tourism should be constructed so that agriculture can metamorphose into a modern industry.
The upgrade and optimisation of agricultural product processing industries should be promoted. Coordinated development of agricultural product production and primary and deep processing should be advanced in order to promote local value-added transformation. The transformation and upgrade of agricultural product processing facilities should be promoted; construction of regional precooling, drying, storage, freshness-ensuring, and fresh-cut packaging initial processing facilities should be supported; and clean and intelligent deep processing should be developed.
High-quality development of rural distribution should be promoted. Construction of county-level commercial systems should be deepened. Sound logistics and distribution systems penetrating the county, town, and village levels should be established. The transformation and upgrade of agricultural wholesale markets should be promoted. Construction of cold chain logistics systems designed for agricultural products should be optimised, high-quality rural e-commerce development projects should be implemented, construction of county-level live commerce bases should be promoted, and efforts should be made to develop the online sale and marketing of local rural specialities. Supervision of rural distribution should be strengthened, and counterfeit and inferior products should continue to be cracked down upon in rural areas.
Measures designed to increase rural residents' incomes should be strengthened. Rural residents should be supported in the development of family business projects. Employment should be promoted in multiple channels for rural labour, special initiatives designed to ensure that migrant workers receive support services should be carried out, and dynamic monitoring of migrant worker employment should be strengthened. Vocational skills training developed for the purpose of benefitting migrant workers should also be strengthened, and undertakings designed to boost income derived from property should be implemented.
4. Boosting the Level of Rural Development
The effectiveness of rural planning guidance should be enhanced. Trends associated with changes in rural populations should be adapted to, and village layouts, industrial structures, and public service configurations should be optimised. Comprehensive spatial planning covering the configurations of towns, villages, industrial parks, and other zones and administrative areas in counties should be strengthened.
Initiatives designed to improve rural living environments should be implemented thoroughly. Treatment of domestic sewage and garbage and rural toilet renovation should be promoted in accordance with local conditions, and participation of rural residents and long-term management and protection systems should be enhanced.
Gaps in rural infrastructure should be filled. Rural water supply projects and rural power grids should be improved, distributed new energy should be pursued in rural areas, and achievements related to the identification and rectification of safety hazards potentially affecting rural homes should be consolidated and expanded upon. Digital rural development initiatives should continue to be implemented, and smart agriculture development should continue to proceed. An undertaking known as the Smart Radio and Television Rural Project, which is an initiative designed to strengthen and standardise media and communication technologies, extend 5G and fibre optic networks, promote the integration of smart broadcasting and television with rural vitalisation strategies, promote cultural power and digitalisation, and harness the power of the internet in rural areas, should be implemented methodically. Provinces with sufficient means, such as financial and infrastructural capability, should be encouraged to coordinate the creation of regional big data platforms, and collaborative sharing of information pertaining to agricultural production and operation, other aspects of agriculture, and rural social management should be strengthened.
Public service systems should be improved in rural areas. The supply of public education services should be optimised, and action plans pertaining to the development and improvement of underperforming county-level high schools should be implemented. Service capacity should be strengthened in township health centres and village clinics, and the proportion of rural doctors that are licensed practicing physicians and assistant physicians should steadily increase.
Construction of rural ecological civilisation should be strengthened. Efforts should be made to combat and control agricultural pollution and rural pollution in general, and integrated ecological protection and restoration should be promoted in rural areas. Efficiency improvement and reduction in usage of chemical fertiliser and pesticide should be thoroughly promoted, and circular agricultural models should also be promoted. Counties should engage in comprehensive agricultural nonpoint source pollution prevention and control throughout their borders. Research into and remediation of sources of heavy metal pollution in farmland soil should be strengthened. Comprehensive desertification control should also be strengthened, and "complementary greening and solar" models (projects that involve both greening and photovoltaic power generation) should be explored and implemented.
Counties should engage in integrated urban-rural development. Complementary integration of functions in counties' central and rural areas should be promoted, and resource allocation should be optimised. Counties should optimise their industrial structures and spatial layouts and improve their employment capacities. The planning, construction, and management of county-level urban and rural infrastructure should be coordinated, and construction of urban-rural educational communities and closely knit county-level medical communities should be promoted.
5. Improving the Level of Rural Governance
Efforts should be made to enable rural culture to enjoy flourishing development. The supply of cultural services should increase. The protection, inheritance, and innovative development of excellent traditional rural culture should be strengthened. Agricultural cultural heritage and rural intangible cultural heritage should be excavated, arranged, protected, and utilised, and rural cultural relic protection projects should be implemented. Centralised and contiguous protection and utilisation of traditional villages should be modelled and demonstrated.
6. Strengthening Leadership in Work Related to Agriculture, Rural Areas, and Their Residents
Diversified rural vitalisation investment systems should be improved. Financial investment should be ensured and digital inclusive finance should be pursued and developed in rural areas, and the creation of rural credit systems should be promoted. Investment of social capital should be encouraged in agriculture and in rural areas in general, and improper investment and operation behaviour should be effectively prevented and corrected. Supervision of agricultural funding projects should be strengthened.
Rural talent teams should also be strengthened. Talent support plans that promote rural vitalisation should be implemented, talent training should increase in rural areas, and cultivation of agriculture, forestry, and water conservancy professionals should accelerate in areas where they are scarce. Research institutes and experts from universities should be encouraged to serve agriculture and rural areas in general.
Editor's Note: English versions of reports and other files are for reference only; official Chinese versions shall prevail in case of inconsistency. The WFP-China South-South Cooperation Knowledge Sharing Platform shall not be liable for any problems or difficulties that arise from the direct or indirect use, reproduction, or retransmission of the information contained in English versions.
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