Tenth Five-Year Plan of the Agriculture Industry and its Development

1.Main objectives:
During the Tenth Five-Year Plan (2001-2005), the structure of agriculture and the rural economy will continue to be optimized and agricultural accomplishments and benefits will continue to improve. The annual growth rate of agriculture in terms of value added will remain at around 5 percent and the gross value added will account for 13 percent of the Gross Domestic Product by 2005.
China will abstain from the trend of slowing down farmers income growth and opt for a relatively high increase with an annual net income growth rate of 5 percent. The country will also boost its construction of a well-off, rural society, steadily increase its agricultural production capability, enhance product quality to increase competitiveness and meet the development of the national economy and population and the requirements for better living conditions.

The standards for agricultural science, technology and farming equipment will also be significantly improved. The essential conditions for agriculture and comprehensive agricultural capability will also be enhanced on an ongoing basis.
By 2005, the power of the nation's agricultural machinery will meet 620 million kilowatts. Promoting agricultural modernization and speeding up the process in developed regions and suburbs of large and medium-sized cities will also be a priority.

Furthermore, China will promote the construction of towns in the countryside and transfer the surplus labor force in agriculture to other sectors, such as township industries; the number of farmers to be transferred by 2005 is around 40 million. The proportion of the agricultural labor force in China will decline to 44 percent of the total labor forces.

An indepth reform of the agricultural economic system will continue and a social service system, agricultural market system and effective support and protection system for agriculture will be established in line with the nation's situation and regional characteristics. The agricultural economic system will be developed to meet the needs of a socialist market economy.

The developmental goals in agriculture during the Tenth Five-Year Plan are as follows: adjusting and optimizing the production structure of agriculture and promoting an overall development of cultivation and breeding; improving product quality to enhance market competitiveness; optimizing the regional agricultural production structure and giving full play to regional comparative advantages; developing the processing industry for agricultural products to create more added value; keep improving township businesses and township construction to absorb a surplus labor force in the countryside; promoting the reform of agricultural cultivation to set a good example for the modernization of China's agriculture.

2. Development objectives:

The proportion of the planting industry in gross output should be adjusted from 55.7 percent in 2000 to 50 percent by 2005. National cultivated areas should be kept above 128 million hectares and the total cultivated area for foodstuffs must be preserved above 107 million hectares.

China's population will climb to 1.366 billion by 2005 based on a natural growth rate of 13 per 1,000. Primary estimates show major agricultural product output will reach 530 to 540 million tons and the cultivated area will top 107 million hectares.

The output of cotton will be 4.5 million tons with a cultivated area of 4.6667 million hectares; the output of oil plants will be about 30 million tons with a cultivated area of 16.6667 million hectares; the output of sugar plants will be 105 million tons with a cultivated area of two million hectares. The production of vegetables and fruits will focus on quality improvement to meet growing market requirements.

3 Development pivots and deployment:

1) Grain plants
-Rice: cultivated area of rough rice will remain at 30.6667 million hectares. Early cultivated rice areas will be suppressed while semilate and ratooning areas will be maximized to maintain the current area for late rice. The high-grade proportion of early rice will be increased from 50 percent to more than 70 percent.

-Wheat: cultivated wheat areas will remain at about 28.6667 million hectares. Cultivated wheat areas in Huanghe River, Yellow River, Haihe River and the Northwest will be stabilized while such areas in the southern regions and unsuitable regions in the Northeast will be minimized.

To cope with the short supply of high-quality wheat, the pivots should be as follows: to eliminate inferior breeds of Southern winter wheat and Northeastern spring wheat; develop the production of wheat as a raw material for bread, steamed bread and noodles in North China; use wheat as a raw material for cookies and cakes in JiangHuai Region and as a raw material for beer in the Northwest; set up production bases for high-quality commodity wheat. By 2005, the cultivated area for special-use, high-quality wheat will be expanded to about 6.6667 million hectares to realize the goal of essential self-support.

-Corn: cultivated corn areas will remain at about 23.3333 million hectares. To promote the development of corn processing, high-quality, nutritional corn or corn with a high proportion of amylum or oil will be promoted in some concentrated regions for value-added corn processing.

-Soybean: cultivated soybean areas will resume to more than 8.6667 million hectares. The Plan of Rotation production of Soybeans and Corn in the Northeast will be carried out and cultivated areas will jump by 0.6667 million hectares. Breeds will be upgraded and the production of high-oil and high-protein soybeans will be emphasized to meet the demand for different qualities from different users.

-Potato: cultivated potato areas will remain at about 10.6667 million hectares. The focus will be on developing processing-type potatoes and promoting poison-extraction technology to increase the per-unit yield and breed quality.

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