At a "China Rural Development Report 2020" conference and the "14th Five-Year Plan" China Rural Development High-level Forum in Beijing on August 17, jointly held by the Rural Development Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Social Sciences Press the "Report on China's Rural Development 2020" was issued in preparation for writing the 14th five-year plan for 2021-25. In the report, China's elite Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) pronounced that "the rural collective economy is still at a low level of development, its development is uneven, and it lacks sustainability and profitability." The report's unusually candid assessment after 70 years of socialism identified rural problems and "contradictions" that include weak farming incentives, difficulty achieving sustainable income growth, growing divisions within villages, and an ageing population. CASS noted that a 135-million-metric-ton shortfall in grain supplies is projected for 2025, the rural industry is unprofitable, business financing is inadequate, rural services are lacking, a rural garbage disposal problem is mounting, and soil and water resources are degraded by both industrial and agricultural pollution. The Chinese countryside lacks quality workers and business leaders, and rural youngsters are ignorant of both science and rural family traditions. Some villages are controlled by outsiders, and rural China has failed to develop a new value system to maintain a stable society, the CASS report said.
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