Putting aside farm work, 65-year-old Yan Junchang at Xiaogang Village of Fengyang County, east China's Anhui Province, squatted on his home's threshold and listened to Premier Wen's government work report attentively through live TV broadcasting on Sunday.

"In the report, all the contents about rural issues were substantial and down-to-earth. Like "gifts" from the Premier, those contents impressed us deeply," Yan said.

"Since several hundreds of billions yuan of budget expenditure will go to rural areas, we see great hope in building a new countryside."

One of the 18 initiators of China's land contract system, which was later seen as the commencement of the nation's rural reform, Yan, together with most of his fellow villagers, is working for a new "reform" to pool their farmland again so as to create a more efficient economy.

Having farmed for decades, Yan will voluntarily lease his land to a Shanghai-based animal and poultry breeding company.

He said, "The land contract system has helped many villages, like our Xiaogang, where people manage to make ends meet but fail to get wealthy."

"Now the Government pays great attention to us farmers, as rural issues are mentioned frequently in the government work report and the development program for the 2006-2010 period."

"We should bring our initiative for the land contract system into full play and try our best to increase income," Yan said.

One night in Nov. 1978, 18 villagers at Xiaogang risked their lives to sign a secret agreement which divided the then People's Commune-owned farmland into pieces for each family to cultivate.

The practice was supported by Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's reform and opening to the outside world, and recognized by the Chinese government. Xiaogang has since been seen as the pace-setter of the nation's rural reform.

Allocating farmland to each household fired local farmers' enthusiasm for agriculture production, which had been contained in the outmoded planned economy. The ensuing 1980s became a primary period for development in China's rural areas, which once outperformed their urban peers.

However, since 1990, rural areas have gradually lost their luster, along with flows of large amounts of resources, including labor force, land and funds, to the cities.

Currently, farmers are dwarfed significantly by urbanites in terms of income, which are among the top concerns of the Chinese government.

Cai Liruo, Party secretary of Xida village in Longnan County of Ganzhou City, east China's Jiangxi Province, also watched the live TV broadcasting of Premier Wen's delivery of government work report. The next day, he pasted on his desk a newspaper that carried a story on implementing the new-countryside scheme.

"The scheme is the Premier's commitment, to which we pin our hope," Cai said.

An outlying mountain village, Xida is bestowed with only small lots of farmland for a total population of 4,413.

As early as in 2004, the village was designated as a pilot area for new-countryside scheme. It has since had its roads and water supply improved, doing away with unorderly rural landscape with trashes littered everywhere.

Cai said, "Now we suffer most from insufficiency of capital for infrastructure construction.

The Premier said his government would set aside 339.7 billion yuan (US$42 billion) to address rural problems. We are looking forward to the money being put in place to help change the countryside thoroughly."

It is reported that in the 2006-2010 period, Jiangxi, a province based on agricultural production, will have 10,000 kilometers of roads covered by pitch, cement or bricks.

This year the provincial government will allocated 600 million yuan (US$75 million) in improving infrastructure of 6,000 villages.

Zhang Chaosheng, a veteran farmer in Zizhong County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, was pleased with the following statements in the government work report -- "Over the next two years, we will completely eliminate tuition and miscellaneous fees for all rural students receiving compulsory education." and "The state will spend more than 20 billion yuan over the next five years on renovating hospital buildings in towns and townships and in some counties and upgrading their equipment."

Zhang also said that "education has been a heavy burden for farmers. The fee elimination will be a great relief for us."

"Moreover, my kids have gone to work in cities, then what will happen to us if we fall ill. The Government will pay for improved medical service in rural areas. This, too, will dispel our worries," Zhang added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2006)