[Daily Learning] Ensure that 1.8 billion mu of arable land is well-deserved protection | Teeth | arable land
Xi Jinping: it is necessary to take hard measures to "grow teeth" and comprehensively consolidate the responsibilities of local party committees and governments at all levels for cultivated land protection. The central government should sign "military orders" for cultivated land protection with all localities, strictly assess and pursue responsibility for life, so as to ensure that 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land is worthy of its name.
This passage comes from the speech made by General Secretary Xi Jinping on March 6, 2022 when he visited the agricultural, social welfare and social security members who participated in the Fifth Session of the 13th CPPCC National Committee.
Food is paramount to the people. The fundamental guarantee of national food security lies in arable land, which is the lifeblood of food production. In recent years, the demand for grain consumption in China has continued to grow, coupled with the basic national situation of more people and less land, the situation of farmland protection in China is still very severe. Therefore, the focus on grain production can only be tight and cannot be relaxed. We must firmly hold onto the red line of farmland protection and make it an important political task.
Over the past decade, China's legal system for the protection of arable land has been continuously improved, with the revision and implementation of the Land Management Law of the People's Republic of China and the Implementation Regulations of the Land Management Law of the People's Republic of China. The Law on the Protection of Black Soil of the People's Republic of China has been promulgated and implemented. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have issued the Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of arable land and Improving the Balance of Occupation and Compensation, making special arrangements to resolutely stop the "non agriculturalization" of arable land and prevent the "non grainification" of arable land. According to the 2022 Natural Resources Statistics Bulletin released by the Ministry of Natural Resources, there were a total of 127.601 million hectares of arable land in China last year, approximately 1.914 billion mu, with a net increase of about 1.3 million mu. The total amount of arable land has achieved a net increase for two consecutive years. At the same time, various regions have effectively fulfilled their responsibilities in protecting arable land, adopted hard measures to "grow teeth", and implemented the strictest arable land protection system. Taking Zhejiang and Shandong as examples, since 2019, Zhejiang Province has taken the lead in carrying out the concentrated and contiguous construction of "millions" of permanent basic farmland, carrying out centralized rectification of nearly 1 million mu of permanent basic farmland, and creating high-quality farmland suitable for large-scale planting and modern agricultural production. Shandong Province has taken the lead in implementing the "field chief system" for farmland protection nationwide, establishing an integrated natural resource monitoring and supervision system for air, space, and earth. More than 120000 field chiefs have achieved the implementation of jurisdiction mapping and real-time recording of patrol routes, significantly improving their monitoring and supervision capabilities for illegal activities on farmland.
On the new journey, we must adhere to the bottom line thinking, enhance our awareness of crisis, protect good farmland, and guard the granary well. Implementing the shared responsibility of the Party and government in protecting farmland, by reasonably expanding and supplementing the sources of farmland, improving the standards and quality of farmland construction, etc., we aim to make farmland truly a high-quality and sustainable land with high energy efficiency. At the same time, various regions should continuously improve the level of legalization in land management. Deepen the reform of land management system, strengthen the planning and use control of national land, coordinate the layout of functional spaces such as agriculture, ecology, and urban areas, and delineate and implement the "three control lines" of ecological protection red line, permanent basic farmland, and urban development boundary.
Special expert for this issue: Feng Danmeng, Rural Economic Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs