While urban investment pushed the economy onto a track of double-digit growth in the first half of the year, short-term prospects for the countryside are not encouraging.

A recent report by the National Development and Reform Commission revealed that Chinese farmers' incomes during the January-June period were increasing at a slower pace than last year.

In light of dipping prices of farm products and rising prices of agricultural production materials, income disparity between urban and rural residents is set to widen in the second half of the year.

Short-term initiatives, such as an optimized subsidy system to grain growers, are necessary for preventing a deterioration of the situation.

The wealth gap between urban and rural areas, which has been growing for more than a decade, should prompt policy-makers to take solid, decisive moves to assist farmers leaving the field to make a living in manufacturing or service industries.

The most important element for a long-term policy package aimed at boosting farmers' incomes is to ensure substantial growth in their incomes from non-agricultural businesses.

Measures needed for meeting this end are related to many other sectors so their design and implementation require careful planning, effective orchestration among related departments and a determined attitude.

For example, the welfare of migrant workers, who are still generally underpaid and widely discriminated against, must be improved; commercially viable financial institutions meeting the needs of small businesses in the countryside should be approved; farmers whose land was conscripted for industrial or urban development must be compensated fairly.

China is now in a situation in which no reform can be carried out easily.

There is no time for complaining and no room to back away if problems are really to be resolved.

Among all the policy directives issued by the central government every year, the first one is always reserved for the issue of development of rural areas and welfare of farmers, a chronically weak point for the country's economic and social development.

Deputies to China's National People's Congress endorsed a grand nationwide program to build a "new socialist countryside" to achieve balanced development between urban and rural areas when they met in March.

This ignited hope that well-rounded, well-coordinated, forceful measures are pending to address all the intricate problems.

Less than five months after the "new-countryside" decision was made, the report and figures released by the NDRC again reminded us of the mounting challenge and the nation's pronounced determination to face it.

(China Daily August 2, 2006)