Wu Guangqiang jw368@163.com ON Thursday, President Xi Jinping attended a gathering at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mark China’s accomplishments in poverty eradication. On Feb. 21, China unveiled its “No. 1 central document” for 2021, calling for efforts to comprehensively push forward rural vitalization and accelerate the modernization of agriculture and rural areas. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), the document says, the CPC will continue to give top priority to tasks concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers. During the 13th Five-Year Plan period, China made significant progress in developing modern agriculture and got rural revitalization off to a good start. The country’s annual grain output has remained above 650 million tons since 2015, and the per capita income of rural residents at the end of 2020 more than doubled that of 2010. The goals for poverty alleviation were met ahead of schedule, with absolute and regional poverty eliminated, creating a miracle in the history of poverty reduction. China’s remarkable achievement in rural poverty alleviation is unprecedented in world history. At the end of 1978, 770 million people lived in poverty in China’s rural areas, with the poverty rate as high as 97.5 percent. By the end of 2019, the number had dwindled to a mere 5.5 million and the poverty rate down to 0.69 percent. China has achieved leapfrog development in poverty reduction, contributing over 70 percent to global poverty reduction and making important contribution to the realization of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. Behind this unthinkable feat are immeasurable and unremitting efforts by the top leadership, millions of grassroots cadres, employees and hundreds of millions of farmers across the country. President Xi, ever since he began to serve the people as a junior official in his youth, all the way up to provincial governor and Party chief, and the leader of the CPC and head of State, has been visiting rural areas, especially those poverty-stricken villages in remote mountains, managing to get firsthand information of the real situations in the rural areas and the true plight of needy farmers. He has repeatedly emphasized the importance of solid and effective work in poverty eradication, warning against showy but impractical formalism or red-tape practices. The only criteria for satisfactory results must be subject to strict assessment and approved by the farmers concerned. Over the years, millions of knowledgeable and energetic cadres have been sent to villages to help farmers fight against poverty. Paved roads have linked almost every village including those cut off from the outside world. Electricity has illuminated almost every farmhouse, bringing farmers into modernization. The Internet enables residents in deep mountains and islands to sell their produce to cities and buy necessities from online shops. Fundamental changes have taken place in Chinese rural areas, yet the achievements remain preliminary and unsteady. Given China’s huge population and treacherous global supply of grains and other agricultural products, it is of strategic importance to ensure the food security for its 1.4 billion people. A slew of measures will be taken to improve the country’s ability to ensure the supply of grains and other major agricultural products, including creating national grain security production zones and major agricultural product preservation areas. China will not allow encroachment of arable land. In addition, by the end of this year, 6.7 million hectares of high-standard farmland capable of high yield regardless of adverse weather conditions will be built. The seed industry will be given high priority to ensure safe and stable supply of grain, meat and dairy products. A total of 500 agricultural modernization pilot demonstration regions will be established by 2028 and rural infrastructures will be further strengthened to accelerate the modernization. China’s modernization will not be complete without rural area modernization. (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.) | 