To a country where farmers make up more than half of the population, rural prosperity and the well-being of farmers carries prominent weight in China's overall development blueprint.

It is easy to understand that good work in the three agriculture-related issues - the countryside, farmers and farming - represents a shared will of the Party, government and people.

A just concluded two-day rural work conference has ushered in a new development stage for work in the three issues.

Although a routine meeting as it is customary for the country's top decision-makers to unveil their strategies for rural China at the beginning of each year, the conference, jointly sponsored by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and State Council, can still be regarded as special this year.

Not only because it symbolizes the first mark made by the Party's new generation of leadership on rural policy, but because the country is now bracing for an unprecedented mission - the realization of a xiaokang society, or a moderately affluent life for all.

The ambitious plan for the first two decades of this century was proposed by the 16th Party congress in November. Since then, a national consensus has been reached that bridging the large gap between urban and rural China is a must for the country to fulfill its xiaokang target.

In his keynote speech addressing the conference, Hu Jintao, general-secretary of the CPC Central Committee, pointed out that "if the benefits of xiaokang cannot be attained by rural people, China will fail to live up to its dream of a xiaokang society."

Hu's remarks demonstrate a down-to-earth evaluation of the current generally bright picture for the nation's development.

While the Chinese people, on the whole, have successfully made an historic leap from having only adequate food and clothing to leading a basically affluent life by the end of last century, the situation in the countryside is far from satisfactory.

The vast rural area is afflicted with such problems as low productivity of agriculture, irrational agricultural structures, stagnation in farmers' incomes and heavy economic burdens from an array of fees levied on farmers, substandard education and the absence of a social security umbrella to cover the 800 million rural inhabitants.

The prevailing perception blames the backwardness of rural areas on a national policy that in the past put industrialization ahead of rural development. This holds much truth.

Therefore, it is a fair judgment as well as timely recognition that agricultural development has made huge contrib