This Day, That Year

On Jan 1, 1982, the Communist Party of China Central Committee approved the application of the household contract responsibility system, which allows farming households to manage agricultural production on their own initiatives while the farmland remains in the ownership of the rural collective.

Started in Xiaogang village in Anhui province in the late 1970s, the system enables farmers to use land through long-term contracts and keep the produce after paying taxes. It raised productivity and increased agricultural output, both of which were preconditions for nurturing the economic takeoff, and comprehensive industrialization and urbanization. The start of the system is widely accepted as a milestone in the country's economic opening-up.

To further improve the productivity of farmers as well as enhance the efficiency of farmland, which is the key for resolving farmland challenges, efforts have been intensified to boost the country's agriculture.