China No.1 Central Document of 2020.

This China No.1 Central Document of 2020 on Agricultural and Rural development is a cross-sectoral policy document at the national level. As the first policy statement released by China's central authorities each year, agriculture, rural areas and farmers' issues remain China's top priorities. The Policy Document stresses two main tasks --poverty alleviation and improving rural weak links. It urges efforts on winning the battle against poverty and strengthening areas of weakness concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers, so as to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects.
As food security is a top priority, the Policy Document requests to secure supplies of important agricultural products and maintain the stability of grain planting areas and output. China will also work to return hog production capacity to normal levels by the end of 2020, and support the production of dairy and poultry products.
The Policy Document seeks to make agriculture, forestry and fisheries more productive and sustainable. Measures to be implemented include: (i) to control rural ecological and environmental problems, i.e. enhance the treatment and reuse of livestock manures, reduce the application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, control soil and water pollution, conserve arable farmland, etc. (ii) ensure the land resource supply for rural and agricultural development, i.e. setting up arable land red lines, incorporating land use for constructing processing, storage and marketing facilities into land management system; etc.
For achieving the above mentioned two major objectives of 2020, the Document highlighted 27 countermeasures. One of the five key work areas is to win the battle against absolute poverty. Eliminating absolute poverty by the end of 2020 is a periodical goal of the national poverty reduction strategy. The major tasks include: (i) entirely lift existing poor population out of absolute poverty; (ii) consolidate the results of poverty alleviation and prevent that people fall back into poverty; (iii) strengthen the work of measuring poverty reduction achievements and performance for recognizing counties with successful poverty alleviation; (iv) continue to effectively implement existing poverty alleviation policies and countermeasures; (v) prepare and formulate the post 2020 poverty reduction strategies and countermeasures. Concrete countermeasures are also proposed to overcome the shortcomings in rural public infrastructures and public services, including: (i) improve rural public infrastructure such as roads, electricity supply, communication facilities, etc.; (ii) improve drinking water supply facilities; (iii) improve rural community hygiene and living as well as environmental infrastructures; (iv) improve rural education quality and facilities; (v) improve rural community health services; (vi) improve rural social security supply and coverage; (vii) improve rural community cultural services and relevant facilities; etc. The Policy Document also calls for creating more job opportunities and stabilizing the income of rural migrant workers.
The Plolicy Document seeks to enable more inclusive and efficient agricultural and food systems. The document calls for the integrated industrial development in rural areas propelled by a whole industry chain based on local resources and advantages, along with industrial clusters with a competitive edge. Agricultural structures should be optimized to feature more high-quality agricultural products and better certification of healthy food, organic produce and source of production, while e-commerce penetration in rural areas and oversight of food and produce should be enhanced. New agricultural entities such as qualified family farms are eligible to enjoy preferential credit and tax policies. It further proposes to strengthen the development and adoption of agricultural sciences and technologies.