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China plans to raise farmers' income and improve grain
production capacity this year through a number of initiatives to
improve its food security, the top legislature was told
Saturday.
Ma Kai, minister in Charge of the State Development and Reform
Commission, made the remarks in his report to the legislature on
the implementation of the 2003 Plan for National Economic and
Social Development and on the 2004 Draft Plan for National Economic
and Social Development.
China will continue carrying out strategic restructuring of
agriculture and the rural economy and implementing a plan to
arrange where crops are grown, so as to use cropland to the best
geographical advantage, said the minister.
"We will strengthen the emergency animal epidemic prevention
system, improve the system of quality standards and the system for
inspecting and testing farm products, and implement the Action Plan
for Pollution-Free Food."
The minister said China will promote the adjustment and
transformation of township and village enterprises, selectively
develop small towns, and strengthen intra-county
economies.?
Vocational training will be offered to rural laborers, and
better information will be provided to guide the movement of
surplus rural labor in an orderly way, he said.
"The problem of withholding or delaying payment of the wages of
migrant rural workers in cities must be solved, and a mechanism to
ensure the timely payment of such wages will be established and
improved."
He said that pay for farmers will be included in the budgets for
government-financed rural construction projects to ensure they are
properly paid.
China will deepen the reform of rural taxes and administrative
charges, reduce the rates for agricultural taxes and eliminate
taxes on all special agricultural products except tobacco to
effectively ease the burden on farmers, he said.
The government will continue to give people work in place of
relief subsidies as part of the effort to improve the mechanism for
alleviating rural poverty through development, said the
minister.
He added that emergency disaster relief work must be done well,
promising proper arrangements will be made for the work and daily
lives of needy rural households.
He went on to say the acreage sown to grain must be expanded,
and the country will make efforts to increase the yield per unit
area and ensure that grain output totals 455 billion kilograms this
year.
China will practice the most stringent possible system for
protecting farmland, and will reform the way land is expropriated
and the mechanism of compensating for its expropriation, he
said.
"The transformation of farmland to non-agricultural purposes
will be planned and managed strictly".
China will launch a project to industrialize production of
high-quality grains, and establish a group of state production
centers concentrated in major grain producing areas to produce
high-quality and special grain crops, said the minister.
He said investment will be increased to develop improved crop
strains, promote wider application of advanced agricultural
techniques, prevent and control plant diseases and pests, improve
irrigated areas, develop dry farming and water-saving irrigation,
turn hillsides into terraced fields and build silt trappers.
"Improvement of low- and medium-yield farmland will be
accelerated," he said.
Moreover, Ma said, major grain consumption areas will also be
obligated to protect their primary farmland to maintain necessary
grain production capacity and ensure adequate local grain
reserves.
(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2004)
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