Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during the central rural work conference in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - China has pledged to deepen rural reforms and step up agricultural modernization, according to a statement issued after a central rural work conference which ended on Tuesday.

The two-day meeting was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and senior leaders Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli.

Central government policy on the countryside, agriculture and farmers has been effective in arousing enthusiasm in the new century and has boosted the development of agriculture and the countryside, the statement said.

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Reform started in the countryside and rural growth has contributed much to the leap from being barely fed and clothed to moderate prosperity.

"When defining a moderately prosperous society, the key is to observe the condition of farmers," the statement said.

It must be noted that agriculture is still the weakest among the four pursuits of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization. The countryside still lags behind, the statement said.

"If China wants to be strong, agriculture must be strong. If China wants to be beautiful, the countryside must be beautiful. If China wants to get rich, the farmers must get rich," the statement said.

Tackling problems in the countryside should be at the core of work of the central authorities, the statement said.

Full bowls of rice

Populous as China is, the task of simply feeding the people remains a high priority, the statement said.

"The bowls of the Chinese, in any situation, must rest soundly in our own hands. Our bowls should be filled mainly with Chinese grain. Only when a country is basically self-sufficient in food, can it take the initiative in food security and grasp the overall situation for economic and social growth," it said.

Xi urges rural development

China has set a red-line guarantee that arable land never shrinks to less than 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares). The line should be strictly followed, the statement stressed.

To ensure the farmers profit from grain planting and the key production bases are active in encouraging farmers to plant grain, more efforts should be made to link agricultural subsidies with grain output, it said.

Irreplaceable rural families

To stick to the central authorities' rural policies, the first lies in the basic rural management system.

Rural land is owned by the peasantry collectively and this is the "soul" of the rural basic management system, the statement read.

Collective land should be contracted by rural families, namely members of the collective economic organizations.

No other party can substitute the rural family status in contracting land and no matter how the right to contract for management is transferred, the right to contract collective land belongs to rural families, it said.

"The subjects of the rights to contract for management will grow apart from the subjects of the rights to manage. This is the new trend for China's agricultural production relations," the statement stressed.