Skip to main content

Revive Rural China in 27 Simple Steps

China's "Number 1 Document" for this year--the seventh year in a row that it has focused on rural issues--portrays a very ambitious plan for addressing rural problems. It goes on for pages and pages and covers agricultural markets, science and technology, seed companies, rural finance, land, cooperatives and agribusinesses, harmonizing rural and urban development and much more.

Chinese authorities published the graphic below (probably available as full-color poster to decorate communist party office walls nationwide) as a summary of rural policies for 2010. Rural policies have been whittled down to 27 points divided into five sections. Each point represents a whole set of policies, pilot programs, and subsidies. I think this corresponds to the Number 1 document's organization. A translation is below.

2010 Central No. 1 Document
Five-sided Solution to New “Three Rural” Issues

I. Establish and strengthen a complete rural policy system, mobilize rural resources
1. Continue expanding national agirulctural and rural investment
2. Improve agricultural subsidy system and market control mechanism
3. Increase rural financial service quality and level
4. Guide social resources to invest in agriculture and rural areas
5. Open up the rural market

II. Modernize agriculture, promote the transformation of the mode of agricultural development
6. Stabilize development of grain and agricultural commodities in general
7. Build water management infrastructure
8. Build high standard fields
9. Raise agricultural science innovation and extension capacity
10. Establish a complete agricultural commodity system
11. Pursue ecological safety

III. Speed up the improvement of rural life, reduce urban-rural differences in development
13. Enthusiastically promote rural employment creation
14. Raise rural education and health and cultural level
15. Raise rural social insurance level
16. Strengthen rural water, electricity, road, gas, and housing construction
17. Continue poverty alleviation work

IV. Coordinate urban and rural reform, strengthen agricultural and rural development
18. Stabilize and improve rural basic operation system
19. Orderly advance rural land management system reform
20. Raise agricultural production operations organization level
21. Reform forestry
22. Continue deepening rural general reform
23. Advance urbanization development system and innovation
24. Raise agricultural external openness

V. Strengthen rural grassroots organization, strengthen the Communist Party’s basic legal enforcement and administration in rural areas
25. Strengthen and improve rural grassroots party construction
26. Advance and improve rural grassroots governance mechanisms according to national conditions
27. Maintain rural social stability

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...

China's 2024 Ag Imports Shrank in Value

China's agricultural imports declined 7.9 percent during 2024 to reach $215 billion, according to data posted on the customs administration website. The 2024 value was lower than each of the 3 preceding years. Agricultural exports were up 4.1 percent to reach $103 billion. Source: Data from China Customs Administration December reports. The top two agricultural import categories by value both declined. Soybeans ($52.75 billion in 2024) fell 10.9 percent, and meat ($23.38 billion) fell 15.1 percent. Cereal grain imports ($15 billion) were down 28 percent and fish & shellfish imports ($18.5 billion) were down 6.2 percent. Edible oils imports ($10.6 billion) were down 17.8 percent. Fruit, rubber, cotton and wool and beverage imports were up for the year. The decline in value of imports partly reflected a decline in prices. Customs reported that the volume of soybean imports for calendar year 2024 reached a record 105 million metric tons, up 5.6 million metric tons from the previou...

Feed Boom & Cratering Grain Imports; China Leaves Us Guessing

In the first half of 2025 China increased its meat and egg production by a combined 1.58 million metric tons (mmt) from a year earlier, a moderate increase of 2.5%. Meanwhile, animal feed output during H1 2025 compiled from feed industry association reports increased by 14.5 mmt (+10 percent) from a year ago. China's 14.5-mmt increase feed output growth outpaced the 1.58-mmt growth in meat production by a ratio of 9:1. It's hard to make sense of these inconsistent figures.  [note: The June 2025 feed industry association report has a 7.7% yoy growth rate for feed output which is inconsistent with the 10.1% growth shown here calculated by comparing data from monthly reports issued last year. Growth rates for complete feed were 8.1%, concentrates -1.5%; additives 6.9%. These inconsistencies are common in the feed industry association reports, a reason for doubting the accuracy of this data.] There is no boom in demand for feed ingredients to fuel a huge increase in feed production...