Full Text: Report on China's economic, social development plan(3)

3. Agricultural and rural development maintained a good momentum.

Output of major agricultural products all increased. We had a good summer grain harvest, a bumper early rice harvest, and a successful autumn harvest, with their output rising 2.5%, 4.5% and 5.1%, respectively, year on year. Total grain output grew for the eighth consecutive year and reached 571.21 million tons, a 4.5% increase over the previous year; and we set a new record for both total annual output and yield per unit area. Oilseed output was 32.79 million tons, up 1.5%; sugar crop output was 125.2 million tons, up 4.3%; cotton output was 6.6 million tons, up 10.7%; the output of meat totaled 79.57 million tons, up 0.4%; and the output of aquatic products reached 56 million tons, up 4.2%.

Policies of strengthening agriculture, benefiting farmers and making the countryside prosperous were fully implemented. Total government expenditures on agriculture, rural areas and farmers reached 2.9342 trillion yuan, up 21.2% from the previous year; and more than 50% of investment funds from the central government budget were used to develop agriculture and rural areas. Comprehensive progress was made in increasing China's grain production capacity by 50 million tons. We increased investment in key projects such as those to harness rivers, protect major water sources, and develop large irrigated areas and carry out water efficiency retrofitting, and we also stepped up efforts to build irrigation and water conservancy facilities and bring small and medium-sized rivers under control. The increase in total farmland exceeded 313,300 hectares last year, and more than four million hectares of high-grade basic farmland were developed. We increased subsidies for agricultural production, and raised the minimum purchase prices for wheat and rice on average by 5.4 yuan and 14 yuan per 50 kilograms, respectively.

Rural working and living conditions further improved. We provided safe drinking water to an additional 63.98 million rural residents and teachers and students at rural schools, making safe drinking water available to 75% of the rural population. We installed or upgraded an additional 340,000 kilometers of electric power lines in the countryside, built or upgraded 190,000 kilometers of rural roads, began hydropower projects in 331 counties under the program to electrify the new countryside, made methane available to another 2.8 million rural households, and enabled 110,000 rural families to replace firewood with electricity generated from micro hydropower plants. We renovated dilapidated houses for 2.65 million rural families, an increase of 1.45 million over the previous year. We supported the construction of grain depots with a total capacity of 4.3 million tons, as well as the construction of 115 wholesale markets and 186 cold-chain logistics projects for agricultural products. We deepened the development of the project on rural goods distribution to get retailers to open stores in more townships and villages as well as the rural network of chain stores.