President Hu Jintao recently urged all local Party committees and governments to fully carry out the central policies of raising grain production and farmers' income, hoping to stabilize the fundamental status of agriculture in China's economy.

Hu said he was pleased to see the farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain on the rise, and reiterated the importance of grain farming during an inspection tour in northwestern Province of Shaanxi from April 9 to 13.

Touching the public with a "people first" principle, Hu's government has worked out a series of policies favoring its 900 million rural people, including purchasing grains at protected prices, subsidizing grain producers directly, stepping up supervision over the price surge of production means for farming and cutting down on agriculture taxes.

The Chinese government has pledged to earmark 10 billion yuan (1.21 billion US dollars) this year from its grain risk fund to directly subsidize grain producers.

Premier Wen Jiabao also pointed to the government's plan to cancel agriculture taxes in five years, another significant measure to alleviate the burden and promote income growth.

From 1997 to 2003, the per capita income of farmers rose four percent annually on average, in sharp contrast to an eight percent jump in the disposable income of urban dwellers. Farmers have complained that planting grain crops is less lucrative than growing fruit, fish or poultry, which experts fear as a potential threat to the country's food security.

While checking the implementation of the new policies, Hu also noted the support of scientific technologies as the way out for China's agriculture.

"Government policies and reforms can revive farmers' motivation. But we still need the progress of scientific technologies to bring agriculture a long-term bright future, which is also the demand of transforming traditional farming to modern agriculture," Hu said.

Meanwhile, the president also reassured local people of the government's determination to promote the strategy of developing the vast western areas, seeing the bumper harvest Shaanxi has achieved in the reforming, opening up and modernization drives.

He said the strategy would combine the development of scientific technologies, good economic profits, low energy consumption, environmental protection and optimization of human resources.

"It's important for the western region to retain its local talents, offer training to various professionals and attract more experts from outside."

He also reminded the western people to value more ecological environment and to form healthy industrial structures and consumption methods favoring both resources saving and environmental protection, which echoed the government's newly-advocated "scientific concept of development" highlighting coordinated social and economic growth and harmonious development of the human and nature.