Women of Dong ethnic group dry Dong cloth at a rural traditional craft cooperative in Liping County, Guizhou Province. Photo: Yang Wenbin/XINHUA

The central rural work conference was held in Beijing in late December 2019, outlining the roadmap for the country’s work related to agriculture, rural areas and rural people in the coming year.

Efforts should be made to boost the development of rural infrastructure and water supply and to improve the rural living environment, education, medical services, social security, cultural activities and ecological environment, according to the conference.

The conference stressed the importance of winning the battle against poverty and called for consistent efforts to lift the rest of the poor population out of poverty and effective steps to prevent people from slipping back into poverty.

The poverty alleviation task for 2019 has been fully completed. More than 10 million people and about 340 counties and regions are estimated to have been lifted out of poverty throughout the year. The poverty headcount ratio has dropped from 8.2% to 2% in the deeply impoverished areas of the “three regions and three prefectures”: Tibet Autonomous Region, Tibetan regions in four provinces, southern parts of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province.

Li Xiaoyun, a professor from the College of Humanities and Development Studies at China Agricultural University, said that there are two major tasks for winning the battle against poverty. The first is to lift the rest of the poor population out of poverty. The second is to consolidate the results of poverty alleviation, preventing people from slipping back into poverty and guarding against new absolute poverty.

We must focus on the sustainability of poverty alleviation by supporting industries and urban-rural equitable access to basic public services, Li Xiaoyun continued. Rural social security, education and medical services are still weak links, and they are also vulnerable areas that may contribute to the reoccurrence and emergence of poverty.

The central rural work conference also discussed a document on increasing efforts on major work concerning agriculture, rural areas and rural people to ensure that the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects is achieved on time.

To finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, we must make up for the shortcomings of infrastructure and public services in rural areas, said Li Guoxiang, a research fellow from the Rural Development Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Issues relating to agriculture, rural areas and rural people are long-term problems in the transformation to modernization, said Li Xiaoyun. These issues cannot be solved in one step, but still must be resolved expeditiously. To compensate for weak links, we must focus on rural income, rural social public services and agricultural comparative interests.

The conference pointed out that ensuring the effective supply of important agricultural products has always been a top priority for work related to agriculture, rural areas and rural people.

According to Wei Longbao, deputy director of the China Academy for Rural Development at Zhejiang University, focusing on agricultural production and ensuring the effective supply of important agricultural products is fundamental for stabilizing prices, stabilizing expectations and ensuring people’s livelihood, which is also essential to addressing the current complex situation, expanding consumption and ensuring the economy is running smoothly.

Adequate supply of agricultural products and stable prices should be the focus of our work to ensure that ordinary people can afford them, Li Guoxiang said. To be more specific, we must increase efforts to benefit rural people and protect their enthusiasm for production. In accordance with the supply and demand of different agricultural products, various supporting policies and measures need to be implemented to ensure stability.

Li Xiaoyun observed that the small scale of agricultural operations and low comparative benefits have affected rural people’s enthusiasm for agricultural production. Ensuring the effective supply of agricultural products should focus on reforming the agricultural management system while improving economies of scale and competitiveness by supporting land transfers. It is necessary to enhance the technological level of agriculture more rapidly, especially to accelerate the development of new technologies, such as smart agriculture, data agriculture and internet agriculture.

“For some time, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has been making arrangements to ensure the effective supply of important agricultural products by designating responsibilities in grain-growing areas, protecting basic farmland, constructing high-standard farmland, adjusting the agricultural industrial structure and making breakthroughs in key technologies that increase production,” said Tong Zhihui, a professor from the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University of China.

These measures are more based on the production side, Tong said. In fact, the effective supply of agricultural products is the result of the effective operation of the entire agricultural industry chain. It includes not only production but also the circulation and distribution of profits throughout the industry chain. The effective supply of important agricultural products requires us to consider not only factors of production, production conditions and technical equipment, but also how to reduce losses in the circulation process, ensure the benefits of producers, promote the classification of products, and ensure high quality and good prices. More importantly, Tong said that we need to consider how profits in the production and distribution links of the chain can benefit rural people more.