Agriculture is the foundation of China's national economy and social stability. As China's largest agricultural province, Henan views developing modern agriculture as the top priority in the process of building a new socialist countryside, Liu Mancang told China.org.cn yesterday.

 
Liu is the Communist Party Secretary of Shangqiu City, Henan Province.

"To develop agriculture, we must strengthen policy, funding, the application of science and technology, and reform," he said.

Liu firmly supported the stance that the Party will continue to develop modern agriculture and invigorate the rural economy as one of its primary tasks, as well as strengthen infrastructure in rural areas, and improve the rural market system and agricultural services.

"I think the Party should increase policy measures to support agriculture by strictly protecting arable land, increasing spending on agriculture, developing agriculture-related science and technology, and improving overall agricultural production capacity to ensure food security for the nation," he said.

China spent 391.7 billion yuan on agriculture this year to develop rural areas and improve the living conditions of farmers. This sum reflects an increase of 52 billion yuan from last year and 94.2 billion yuan from 2005.

In the case of Henan, Liu said: "We are taking steps to ensure adequate crop irrigation, so as to boost our crop yield. We are also looking into employing multiple-cropping patterns and greening methods."

China managed to maintain a rich grain harvest this year, with total output amounting to 497.45 billion kilograms, or 13.44 billion kilograms more than last year. He attributed this growth to the twin effects of farmers' willingness to farm grain and state support policies, including the abolition of the millennium-old agriculture tax.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that the per capita net income for the 900 million rural residents increased 7.4 percent to 3,587 yuan last year. Safe drinking water was made available to 28.97 million more rural people and the use of methane available to an additional 4.5 million rural families.

"Solving agriculture related problems to improve farmers' life is very important, but it will be a long term and arduous task," Liu said. He went on to identify three important starting points:

"First, while continuing to increase budgetary support, we need to make great efforts in easing fund shortage in rural areas.

"Second, we need to shift the focus of infrastructure development toward rural areas so we can deal with pressing problems such as the need for more roads, methane facilities and water supplies.

"Third, we must develop more social programs for rural areas in order to resolve issues relating to access to proper medical care, education for children, and social security benefits."

According to Liu's figures, things are looking on the up for Henan's farmers. Per capita consumption of farmers grew by 16.2 percent in 2006 compared with the previous year, indicating higher annual incomes, while that of their urban counterparts registered a year-on-year increase of 9.4 percent.

This is the first time in the last decade that rural consumption growth has surpassed urban growth in the province.

According to him, to increase farmers' income, the efforts should be invested in developing rural enterprises, expanding county economies and transferring rural labor out of farming through various channels.

Specialized farmers' cooperatives are the effective forms of collective economic operations. "We will train a new type of farmers who are educated and understand both agricultural techniques and business management, and encourage them to play a major role in building a new Chinese countryside," he stated.

(China.org.cn by staff reporter Wang Ke, October 20, 2007)