Agricultural development is always the top priority.

On March 18th, Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China presided over the the State Council executive meeting to clarify the departmental responsibilities and division of labor in the Government Work Report and ensure the completion of the main objectives and tasks of economic and social development throughout the year; Deploy and promote the sustainable development of agriculture and accelerate agricultural modernization. The meeting held that "agriculture, countryside and farmers" is the top priority of the government’s work, and it is necessary to keep the momentum and investment in agriculture constant, deepen the pace of reform, focus on changing the development mode, take the road of new agricultural modernization, ensure national food security and promote farmers’ income.

Just after the two sessions of the National People’s Congress, the State Council held a standing meeting to study the deployment of agricultural development, taking the government work report as the main line, taking the Government Work Report approved by the National People’s Congress as the "responsibility book" for the government to make a commitment to the people of the whole country, and adopted the National Agricultural Sustainable Development Plan, which determined to promote the stable and sustainable development of agriculture from three aspects, fully demonstrating the country’s concern for the "three rural issues" and its high attention to the sustainable development of agriculture.

According to public reports, in 2014, China’s total grain output reached 1.21 trillion Jin, and the per capita grain possession was nearly 900 Jin, both of which reached the highest level in history. Huang Ansheng, director of the China Office of the United Nations World Food Program, once revealed to the media that the current global food security situation is not optimistic. Although the number of hungry people in the world is generally decreasing, the problem of hunger is still serious, and the number of hungry people in North Africa and the Middle East is still increasing. According to the latest hunger report released by the United Nations, nearly 870 million people in the world are chronically malnourished, and about 852 million of them live in developing countries. In this case, China’s remarkable achievements in food security are particularly valuable. Is leading the world. However, the more so, the more soberly we should realize that, while our arable land area is approaching the per capita occupancy limit, no matter how strictly the farmland protection policy is implemented, the overall area will only decrease rather than increase, and the room for increasing grain output will become smaller and smaller. How to ensure that the total grain output will not decline and continue to stabilize and increase grain yield, we must optimize the agricultural production layout, strictly protect cultivated land, stabilize the grain sowing area, and adopt deep ploughing and deep loosening to improve the quality of cultivated land according to the requirements of the State Council. This is not only related to the major fundamental livelihood issues of Chinese where China grain is always in the bowl, but also related to the harmony and stability of the country and society.

If agriculture is the foundation of national economic development and social stability, then food production is the foundation of this foundation. In the thousands of years of historical development in China, "instability without agriculture" can be described as an eternal lesson. The importance of food security is self-evident. China’s population accounts for nearly 20% of the world’s total population. China can solve the food security problem of its own population, and in a sense, it has made great contributions to the world. In fact, in recent years, we have not only solved the problem of feeding our own population, but also achieved rapid economic development and "oversupply" in grain production. These remarkable achievements are really impressive. On the whole, the oversupply of grain production is mainly due to the national policy of benefiting farmers and the increasing investment in science, technology and mechanical agriculture, which makes the grain yield high. However, with the rapid development of agricultural science and technology, the current household contract responsibility system has been difficult to meet the requirements of modern agricultural development, which not only ensures the interests of farmers’ land contractual ownership, but also realizes farmers’ income increase and agricultural development. The executive meeting of the State Council proposed that we should make full use of the system reform, promote various forms of moderate scale operation and improve labor productivity and output level on the basis of stabilizing family business. Therefore, in order to achieve this goal, all localities should, in accordance with the requirements of the central government, allow farmers to take shares in contracted management rights to develop agricultural industrialization.Encourage the transfer of contractual management rights to large professional households, family farms, farmers’ cooperatives and agricultural enterprises in the open market, and develop various forms of scale operation.

With the decrease of cultivated land year by year and the extreme use of land, there is very limited room for the growth of total grain output in the future. China is also a country with frequent natural disasters. There may be "eleven consecutive increases" in grain, but there may not be "twelve" or "thirteen" or even n consecutive increases. Food security will never end. From a long-term perspective, it is not impossible to present a grain crisis with a little carelessness. To this end, the the State Council executive meeting proposed to implement major projects such as water and soil resources protection, agricultural and rural environmental management, promote the conservation of efficient water, prevent and control farmland and aquaculture pollution, strengthen the protection of forests, grasslands, wetlands, rivers and lakes, and develop ecological recycling agriculture. In view of this, local governments must establish a high sense of crisis in farmland protection and grain production, completely change the concept of "land finance" to ensure that the "red line" of cultivated land is not broken. Secondly, we will continue to increase the policy inclination to agricultural production, especially grain production, formulate a long-term mechanism to improve farmers’ enthusiasm for growing grain, encourage and promote the legal and orderly circulation of rural cultivated land, change the traditional planting mode, and promote the transformation of agricultural production to "scale". In addition, increase the propaganda of saving food, form a good atmosphere of saving food in all walks of life and fields, encourage and promote the catering industry to formulate an "anti-waste" management system that is suitable for its own business development and acceptable to consumers. Generally speaking, it is to grasp the agricultural momentum and investment, deepen the pace of reform, focus on changing the development mode, and take a new road of agricultural modernization.Ensure national food security and increase farmers’ income. With the stability of grain as the foundation, all social undertakings can develop steadily, which is not only related to the stability of our own country, but also to the responsibility of a big country for the peaceful and stable development of the world. (Zhu Yonghua)