Since the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China
(
CPC) in 2002, the issues involving agriculture, the countryside
and farmers have been at the top of the agenda.
The CPC Central Committee put forward a concept of bringing
about a new socialist countryside in the drafting of the
11th Five-Year?Guidelines (2006-10).
This new countryside is supposed to enjoy advanced production,
improved livelihoods, civilized social mood, clean and tidy
villages and democratic management.
Although the agricultural sector's performance has been good
since the late 1970s when the country embarked on the road of
reform and opening up, farmers' income growth has been slow because
the demand for farm produce has risen relatively slowly.
Between 1998 and 2004, for example, the annual net income of the
average rural resident increased by only 4.3 percent, half of the
8.6 percent growth rate in urban areas.
As a result, the income gap between rural and urban people
widened, from 2.6:1 in 1978 to 3.2:1 in 2004.
With the problem becoming increasingly pronounced, people have
begun to worry about agricultural production.
The crux of the matter lies in promoting farmers' income.
The question is "how?"
It is generally thought that promoting agricultural production
is of strategic importance to the nation's security in terms of
having sufficient grain supplies. But exclusively increasing farm
output gives rise to the situation that "low prices of grain hurt
farmers," a scenario which haunted Chinese rulers in past
dynasties.
Historical experience in China and the world shows that
sustained income growth for farmers can be achieved only through
realignment of production and employment structures so that the
rural labour force can switch to sectors other than
agriculture.
After this kind of switch, ex-farmers turn from farm produce
suppliers into farm produce consumers. On the other hand, those who
choose to stay on the farmland have more land to till, which helps
expand the size of their operations. All this translates into
sustained growth in income for farmers and ex-farmers.
This is vindicated by the country's own experience in the past
30 years since the household contract system with remuneration
linked to output was introduced.
In the mid and late 1980s, for instance, township enterprises
developed rapidly across the vast countryside, absorbing 120
million farmers. In the early 1990s, another 100 million farmers
left their land and went to cities to work as migrant workers.
But employment began to slide in the late 1990s as a result of
surplus of production capacities and deflation. This served to
block the channel through which rural labourers transfer to
non-agricultural sectors.
This has led to the increase in numbers of land-bound farmers
since 2002, 3.4 million each year. The farmers' income growth,
therefore, slowed down further, which renders the whole rural
situation all the more severe.
Tapping into the potential demand of farmers, which has become
pent up like water in a reservoir, may offer an answer to the
question of surplus production capacities.
Lack of necessary infrastructure such as tap water, electricity
and roads in the countryside makes it impossible for farmers to use
television sets, refrigerators, washing machines, modern kitchens
and toilets, items that should have enjoyed a vast market in the
countryside.
In this context, the bid to bring about a new-type countryside
becomes imperative, both economically and socially, because it
helps promote infrastructure construction, improve farmers'
livelihoods, give an outlet to the pent-up consumption demand and
channel rural labour force into urban areas. All in all, it offers
a key to resolving the long-standing problems involving
agriculture, the countryside and farmers.
The 16th National Congress of the CPC set the goal that the
country as a whole should be built into a moderately prosperous
society by 2020. The per capita annual income is supposed to reach
US$3,000 by then.
Taking into account the current income growth rate of the nation
as a whole, it is not an ambitious target. But the countryside
poses a problem if the 5 percent yearly income growth rate of the
average farmer remains the same, as rural per capita income would
be merely US$1,000 by 2020.
The gap between urban and rural would be all the wider and a
harmonious society would, therefore, be harder to achieve.
Again, building a new countryside is urgently called for.
The No 1 circular in 2006 issued by the CPC Central Committee
demands that, from now on, the sum of funds supporting rural
development should be larger than previous year's and that budget
money earmarked for rural construction should be more than the
previous year's, especially the money spent directly on improving
farmers' lives and rural production.
On condition that this policy is carried out to the letter in
the years ahead and that farmers get actively involved in the
programme, the efforts to build a new countryside are bound to
bring substantial benefits to the farmers.
(China Daily March 6, 2006)