A villager arranges harvested corn at Sanjing Village of Linyi City, east China's Shandong Province, September 20, 2023. /Xinhua
September 23 marks this year's Chinese farmers' harvest festival, a national festival held specifically for the country's farmers. The festival coincides with the Autumnal Equinox each year, which is one of the 24 solar terms of the Chinese lunar calendar that falls during the country's agricultural harvest season.
Fu Linghui, spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), said in a press conference in August that China's autumn grain production is generally stable, which Fu said is conducive to a stable or higher level grain output throughout the year.
China's summer grain output totaled 146.13 million tonnes this year, down 0.9 percent year on year amid adverse weather, according to the NBS. The country's summer grain sown area has grown for three consecutive years, rising to 26.61 million hectares in 2023.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, extended festive greetings and sincere regards on behalf of the CPC Central Committee to farmers and people working on agricultural and rural fronts on Friday. He urged to advance progress in rural revitalization and build a beautiful and harmonious countryside that is desirable to live and work in.
Xi, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, has emphasized grain production and rural revitalization multiple times during his inspection trips around China this year.
Seeds crucial in agriculture
Xi said the seed industry is the foundation for the development of modern agriculture and fisheries, calling for meticulous efforts to ensure its sound development when he was inspecting Guangdong Province in April.
When inspecting Sichuan Province in July, Xi pointed out the importance of seeds and arable land, saying that the combination of improved seeds and good fields should help create a higher level "Granary of Sichuan" in the new era.
Presiding over a meeting on promoting the full revitalization of northeast China in the new era in September, he called for the upgrading of large irrigation areas and the vitalization of the seed industry.
According to the "No. 1 Central Document" for 2023, the first policy statement released by China's central authorities this year, the country vowed to invigorate the seed industry and build a sharing mechanism for accurate identification and evaluation of seed resources.
A villager sorts lychees at Baiqiao Village in Genzi Town, Gaozhou City of Maoming, south China's Guangdong Province, June 12, 2023. /CFP
Distinctive industries advance rural development
The development of the lychee industry in Baiqiao, a village in Guangdong's Maoming City, offers a glimpse of China's efforts to advance rural revitalization through distinctive industries.
Xi went to the village in April and came to a lychee orchard to learn about local efforts to develop distinctive planting and cultural tourism industries.
Baiqiao Village has a long-standing history of lychee cultivation, spanning over 2,000 years, with current plantings covering an area of 6,800 mu (453 hectares), which is approximately 87 percent of the village area.
The village has developed fresh fruit processing, e-commerce, and cultural tourism, providing an increased income for the villagers. By 2022, the per capita income of villagers is estimated to be around 51,000 yuan (about $6,984).
In the "No. 1 central document," specific arrangements have been made concerning the high-quality development of rural industries, stressing the country will strive to ensure that more than 60 percent of the central government subsidies for rural revitalization are used to develop local industries.
Common prosperity for all
While visiting north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in June, Xi noted that, from a national perspective, the most arduous task in bringing prosperity to all the people nationwide remains in some border areas with mainly ethnic minority populations.
These areas should not be left behind on the road to common prosperity, he underscored.
Xi went to the modern agricultural demonstration zone at the southern bank of Wuliangsu Lake in Inner Mongolia. He noted that the demonstration zone should play its role in promoting modern agriculture, keep exploration to find crop species, develop agricultural techniques and ways of farming in line with local conditions, and cut costs while enhancing output to develop modes that could be duplicated and popularized.
Increasing farmers' income should be the central task of the work concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers and every endeavor should be made to broaden the channels for farmers to increase their incomes, Xi stressed in Friday's greetings.