‘Agriculture is the basis for the country’s economy. Agricultural production must be ensured to provide sufficient grain and food to feed the country’s 1.3 billion people. Meanwhile the country’s rural population accounts for 70 percent of the total. Their income needs to be boosted, their living conditions should be improved, and a social security system should also be established for them……
‘While continuous efforts are taken, new problems concerning agriculture, farmers and the rural areas have emerged. Capricious climates and market fluctuations are making agricultural production more vulnerable. The urban-rural gap is still expanding…..
The above quotes have not been taken from any document of the Planning Commission of India, or the Ministry of Agriculture , or the Governor’s address to a State Assembly in India, although they could well reflect the sentiments of the those engaged in the discourse on agriculture in India. These have been taken from the joint statement issued by the Central Committee of the Communist party of China and the State Council. The document in which these are contained is dubbed the Number One Document as this is the first document that is issued at the beginning of the year.
AgriMatters will now examine at length the issues conatined in this document as they have an interesting correlation to the issues that we face in our country. The three issues identified by the document include ,inter alia, the future of China’s vast countryside,the welfare of the 900 million rural poulation and the prospects for China’s agriculture. The one major differecne , though between china and India is that agricultural workers, or forthat matter marginal and small farmers cannot be compelled to stay on in th villages aginst their will. They have a legal right to go and eke a livilehood in the urban areas. It is true that they face hardships and econonmic distress, but at least their presence and work in the city is not illegal. Likewise, urban entreprenurs can also establish instituions and enterprises in rural areas without any major restrictions. Therefore while the gap between the rural and the urban exists, and continues to grow, there are no real water tight compartments between the two. In China, on the other hand, it is actually like two nations – with a differetn set of entitlements for the residents of the urban and the rural areas. Therefore the issues raised in the Document number one have to seen in this context.
The Document states : ‘these three rural issues have become the Chinese government’s top concern for years, largely because of the country’s collosal populations which makes any remarkable economic achievement seem insufficient.’ In addition the development of the agricultural sector has failed to catch up with the pace of China’s industrial development – which has seen greater liberalisation, including FDI, and dismantling of controls , and a governemtn policy which has deliberately kept wages of rural workers and migrant rural workers substantially lower than the urban workers, thereby giving an ufair advantage ot the entreprenur. Yet, for all the hype that China is the world’s largest ever industrail production hub, the vast majority of the country (900 million) of the 1.3 billion population is registered as farming population. The lead article in the weekly Beijing Review(BR) (March 4,2010)accepts that this could affect the stability of the Chinese society if these concerns are not prudently addressed.
The BR also goes on to mention that to address these concerns, steps are being taken to ensure adequate grains,enhance the pace of agricultural insutrialzation and increase the incomes of people living in the rural areas. In many ways these roughly correspond to NFSM (National Food Secuirty Mission) RKVY and the Agricultural Credit and Insurance polciies that we have in our country.
The more one reads their documents, the more one realsies that the core issues are the same in both the countries. With regard to grain secuiryt , the issues include the increase in population, but the decline in arable land on account fo pressure from other users – including homestead land and instituions . A lack of breakthrough in the per unit yiled of crops , and the relatively low prices of agricultural products compared to the ever increasing and fluctuating proces of non grain products are also common to both the countries.
As in India, improving farmers welfare is also an important issue facing the government. The rural urabn disparity has widened – in their case from 1978, and in our case from 1991. Therefore if there is one country where the disparity is more marked, and more stringent, the country is China. The relaisation is also dawning that ‘industrial agriculture’ is not possible on marginal and small farms. This is of course an issue that needs to be debated at length – can sustainable agriculture , farm mechanization , rapid industrialsiation and income parity for farmers go together.
More than India, Chinese rural households find making a living outside the countryside all but impossible. The new jobs that are created in the industrail enterprises in urban areas are too few compared to the vast numbers seeking these jobs. Such a demand supply mismtach leads to corruption, patronage and exploitaion, and many a party stalwart has been punished for this. The Chinese Academy of Social sciences (instituite of Rural Devlopemnt) shows that at the current levels of agricultural production, China needs no more than 200 million farm workers. But the countryside has more than 550 million farm worksers, with over 300 million workers idling their lives, or working at sub optimal levels. The postal, bandking, insurance and rural services infrstaructre in China will take quite some time to develop – and it is also restricted by insuffcient funds, technolgy and infrastructure.
Is it not time that the two emerging nations sat down and enaged in a dialogue to address issues which concernthe vast majority of their populations.
Unfortunately, in the public dsicourse and debate between the two countires, the fact that their number one priorty remains the same is often missed.