Update | Beijing vows respect for farmers' rights as it pushes rural land reforms

The central government pledged in a key policy document yesterday to respect farmers' rights while reaffirming its commitment to grain self-sufficiency and rural land reforms.

The broad policy statement was released as part of the so-called No 1 Central Document, which is issued jointly every January by the Communist Party's Central Committee and the State Council. The document sets priorities for the 12 months ahead and has focused on rural matters for 11 straight years.

This document mapped out "three rural issues" - agriculture, rural areas and farmers - and eight focus areas, including improving food security, modernising agriculture, deepening land reforms, ensuring sustainable rural development and encouraging innovation in rural finance.

The document stressed that Beijing would continue to pursue "basic grain self-sufficiency" while allowing an "appropriate" amount of food imports from overseas. It also said the central government would respect farmers' creativity and support local experimentation with reforms. Uniformity would not be imposed and interim policies might be allowed.

Li Guoxiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Rural Development Institute, said that respecting farmers' rights and taking the differences between villages in to account was conducive to healthy rural development.

Some local authorities had disregarded the needs of farmers in implementing reforms, especially after the Central Committee vowed to expand rural property rights and form a unified market for rural and urban construction after its plenum in November.