Food safety tops China's rural agenda
Annual 'No 1' central government document pledges support for mainland farmers
The central government pledged in a key policy document on Sunday to address food safety and modernise agriculture while raising the income of growers, as it sought to address concerns about future food supply.
The broad statement was released as part of the so-called No1 Central Document, which is issued in January by the Communist Party's Central Committee and the State Council. It sets priorities for the 12 months ahead and has focused on rural matters for the past 12 years.
This blueprint mapped out five goals - modernising agriculture, raising farmers' income, improving infrastructure, deepening land reforms, and strengthening rule of law in rural matters.
Harvests had increased for 11 consecutive years, but as economic growth slowed, it became necessary to reinforce agriculture's position and raise farmers' incomes, it said.
Agriculture accounted for 9.2 per cent of gross domestic product last year, down from 9.4 per cent in 2013, according to preliminary data released last week.
But the industry suffered from overdevelopment, which had contributed to environmental problems, so securing supply and ensuring safety were great challenges, it said.
It said the government would strengthen the supervision system at the county and village level. It also encouraged wholesale enterprises to set up an integrated tracking system so the origins of products could be traced.
On boosting technology within the sector, it said the government would do more to study genetically modified food and the safety concerns surrounding it.
The government would narrow the gap between domestic and global food prices by using modern methods to help gauge costs and productivity. It would also review a pilot scheme to allow the price of cotton and soybean to fluctuate and subsidise farmers when their incomes fell too low.
On land reforms, aimed at allowing farmers to trade their land to create bigger and more efficient farms, the document said the focus was on expanding an experiment that registered usage rights to cover entire provinces. Farmers typically hold long-term land-use contracts allocated by the government, which let them farm the land but not sell it.
