China’s central authorities have unveiled a detailed “roadmap” for effectively advancing the national rural vitalization in its “No.1 central document” for 2024, the first policy statement the central government releases at the beginning of each year that focuses on agricultural and rural issues. The document also prioritized food security, guarding against poverty and farmers’ income growth among other tasks.

While the annual document once again focuses on rural vitalization and agricultural modernization, there are also new highlights, including calls for accomplishing a number of practical things that can tangibly benefit the public, signaling that emphasis has been placed on effectiveness and benefits for farmers, experts said. The document also signaled greater support for market entities to participate in rural vitalization, experts noted.

The document, released by the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council, called for forcefully and effectively promoting full rural vitalization. It contained 28 specific policy measures in six main parts, including ensuring national food security and preventing large-scale sliding back into poverty, according to the Xinhua News Agency, which was authorized to publish the document on Saturday.

The document urges focusing on improving development of rural industries, rural construction and rural governance, strengthening technology and reform drivers, stepping up measures to increase farmers’ income and better executing the fight to advance comprehensive rural vitalization. It also called for accelerating agricultural modernization so as to better advance Chinese modernization.

This is the 12th “No.1 central document” on agricultural and rural work since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, underscoring the great importance China’s top leadership attaches to agricultural modernization, rural vitalization as well as farmers’ livelihoods, experts noted.

“The document signals that the Chinese government will accelerate rural development and will make efforts toward meeting farmers’ needs and achieving tangible and accessible results,” Li Guoxiang, a research fellow at the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Saturday.

Notably, the document urged “concentrating our efforts on accomplishing a number of practical things that are tangible and accessible to the public, and continuing to achieve substantive progress and phased results.”

Such calls for effectiveness and tangible results mean that greater focus will be put on addressing various problems in carrying out the national strategy of rural vitalization, experts noted. “It’s clear that the emphasis has been increasingly placed on the needs of farmers,” Li said.

Among the six priorities listed in the No.1 central document is ensuring food security. Specifically, the document called for maintaining grain output of above 1.3 trillion jin (650 million tons) in 2024 through various means, including increasing unit yields. It also called for strengthening technological innovation in agriculture.

Experts said that as the world is grappling with rising geopolitical conflicts and trade protectionism, which affect global food supply chains, ensuring food security has become the top priority for not just China but also many other countries around the world.

“Ensuring a stable and safe supply of food and important agricultural products is always the top priority in building a powerful agricultural country,” Wang Gangyi, a professor at Northeast Agricultural University, told the Global Times on Saturday, noting that the focus on food security is in line with various top meetings and official documents.

With information from Global Times