Chapter 714

After returning to the grasslands, Lu Fan felt his whole body filled with strength, and he immediately devoted all his energy to the grasslands' development plan.

On October 25, the Provincial People's Congress passed the "Interim Measures for Administrative Penalties on Off-Campus Training in Grassland Province"; private tutoring would become history, because from then on tutoring would not be a violation but illegal! One-on-one private tutoring or hidden home tutoring individuals fined 50,000 to 100,000 yuan, institutions fined 50,000 to 100,000 yuan, and criminal liability pursued.

Then, a vigorous crackdown on paid tutoring special action swept in again, with greater intensity than the previous round, because the public security department enforced the law with handcuffs, and in one night paid tutoring in the grasslands vanished without a trace.

Gradually, the grassland staff accepted "lying flat", because the people's common mentality is: not fearing scarcity but fearing inequality, not fearing poverty but fearing insecurity.

Starting in November, Lu Fan shifted his work focus to developing animal husbandry and agriculture, because he knew the grasslands' foundation forever was animal husbandry and agriculture; even if industry flourished, it must give back to animal husbandry and agriculture.

The total sown area of crops was 8.81 million hectares, of which grain crops accounted for 7 million hectares, with grain output of 40 million tons; meat from pigs, cattle, sheep and poultry amounted to 2.86 million tons, milk output 7.95 million tons, live pig inventory 6.3 million head, cattle inventory 9.48 million head, sheep inventory 61.81 million head, poultry inventory 60 million head—this is the production situation of animal husbandry and agriculture in the grasslands.

Looking at the whole province, the grasslands are an important national base for animal husbandry and agricultural product production, bearing the important responsibility of guaranteeing food security; strengthening the construction of important animal husbandry and agricultural product production bases is one of the grasslands' five major tasks.

However, currently traditional animal husbandry industry development faces ecological environmental pressure and growth bottlenecks, while digital animal husbandry industry development faces weak foundations and lack of a complete system; in 2027, rural online retail sales amounted to 19.8 billion yuan, while the national rural online retail sales for the same period were 2.18 trillion yuan, accounting for only 0.9%, indicating relatively lagging development.

Developing smart animal husbandry and agriculture and raising its modernization level is urgent. Specifically, we must develop smart seed industry, smart farmland, smart planting, smart animal husbandry, smart fisheries, smart agricultural machinery, and smart land reclamation; we must further promote informatization of animal husbandry and agricultural product processing, e-commerce, warehousing and logistics information, and quality and safety information, to keep up with the demands of the times.

On November 15, Lu Fan went to Zhelimu City for research, accompanied by Deputy Secretary Bai Chengzhi, Deputy Provincial Governor Zhang Rongqiu, Director Guo Huaming of the Provincial Animal Husbandry and Agriculture Department, and other leaders; Zhelimu City Municipal Party Secretary Xu Rongliang and Mayor Wei Ruodai accompanied him throughout.

In early winter, the Bai Tong Animal Husbandry Professional Cooperative bustled with activity; workers were busy feeding forage and cleaning cattle sheds, creating a comfortable and easy growth environment for each calf. The cooperative linked the stages of breeding, production, processing, storage and transport, sales, and branding into an effective organic whole, developing cattle breeding suited to local conditions.

The cooperative chairman reported: "We adhere to the idea of 'planting for raising, farming for grazing, integrating planting and breeding, circular development.' The cooperative has signed 'order-based' contracts with local farmers, conducting standardized planting and regular purchases, which not only reduced the cooperative's operating costs and solved the shortage of forage, but also promoted structural adjustment of local planting."

As a breeding cooperative, Bai Shun Animal Husbandry Professional Cooperative has continued to focus on cow breeding and fattening cattle operations, through introducing superior breeds and scientific mating, continually increasing the coverage of excellent breeds and promoting the improvement and quality enhancement of beef cattle.

"Raise cattle well, produce superior milk." At the same time, the cooperative invested 3 million yuan to broaden the industrial chain, establishing a comprehensive dairy product processing workshop integrating production, processing, and preservation. Now, the workshop's output value for this dairy product alone has reached over 1.6 million yuan, with a pure profit of over 400,000 yuan.

Municipal Party Secretary Xu Rongliang reported: "Zhelimu City has issued the 'Notice on Regulating the Construction of Citywide Standardized Family Ranches, Ten-Thousand-Head Thousand-Head Scale Fattening Cattle Breeding Bases, and Barn-Raised Breeding Demonstration Villages'; each banner and county follows the 'Five Standardizations, Ten Possessions' standard to build and create 100 standardized family ranches."

As of now, the city's cattle inventory has reached 4 million head, and the city processed 350,000 head of cattle for slaughter, a year-on-year increase of 46.7%, achieving a substantial increase in slaughter numbers.

Lu Fan said satisfied: "This is exactly right; mobilizing the whole city's strength to unswervingly follow the path of industrialization, standardization, intensification, and branding, continually expanding advantages, making up shortcomings, and producing excellent quality, we will paint a magnificent picture of rural revitalization with 'cattle' spirit soaring to the sky! I hope that in the next two or three years, Zhelimu City will become the nation's top city in the beef cattle industry."

Next, Lu Fan instructed Zhang Rongqiu and Guo Huaming: "The entire province should, following the 'Zhelimu model', vigorously promote the 'household breeding, enterprise raising, dragon-head leading' and 'scale breeding, cluster development' models, guiding small and medium breeders to develop cattle fattening and expanding the fattening cattle breeding population."

Encourage leading enterprises and other social capital to revitalize idle breeding sites through leasing, purchasing, etc., to carry out centralized fattening. Explore developing scale fattening through collective economy or cooperative operation, reducing infrastructure investment, sharing risks, managing at scale, and increasing the people's breeding income.

At the same time, you should promote integrated planting and breeding and ecological circulation, expanding the planting area of silage and high-quality alfalfa.

Next year, the province's scale breeding farms should reach 100,000, with the integrated scale rate of livestock and poultry breeding exceeding 65%. Having the capacity to steadily export 11 million tons of milk and 5 million tons of meat annually, one-third of the nation's mutton consumption and one-fourth of its milk consumption should come from the grasslands, making it a truly important national green animal husbandry and agricultural product production and export base!

Moreover, we must create nine 100-billion-yuan industry chains for beef cattle, mutton, potatoes, mixed grains, wheat, sunflowers, cashmere, vegetables, and forage.

This is a death order from the Provincial Party Committee! I hope that for you, it is both a mobilization order and a call to charge; with all our might, we will forge the handsome card of 'Grassland Green Animal Husbandry and Agricultural Products'!

Whatever support you need, speak up; as long as you dare to propose it, I dare to take it on! The Animal Husbandry and Agriculture Department should quickly produce concrete measures and opinions to support animal husbandry and agriculture development; Comrade Rongqiu will be responsible for review, and promptly submit them to the Provincial Government Standing Meeting and the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee, using policy to lever the province's vigorous development of animal husbandry and agriculture.

"The boundless vast grassland, where the wind blows the grass low and cattle and sheep appear—this is what I envision the grassland should look like!"

After the research concluded, the entire province immediately studied the spirit of Lu Fan's talk in Zhelimu City; the top leaders' focus is the wind vane of work at all levels of the grasslands, and vigorously developing animal husbandry and agriculture has become a provincial consensus.

In December, the provincial government issued the "Animal Husbandry Subsidy Policy", with unprecedented intensity.

For breeding rams of sheep, each receives a subsidy of 1000 yuan;

For live pigs, if the inventory of breeding sows is 300 head or more and the annual output of fattened pigs is 5000 head or more, the subsidy is 50—200 ten-thousand yuan;

For beef cattle: if the annual output of fattened cattle is 500 head or more, or the inventory of breeding cows is 50 head or more, the subsidy is 50—100 ten-thousand yuan;

For mutton sheep: if the inventory of breeding ewes is 400 head or more, or the annual output of mutton sheep is 1000 head or more, the subsidy is 50—100 ten-thousand yuan;

For meat chickens: if the single-house rearing volume is 5000 head or more and the annual output is 100,000 head or more, the subsidy is 500,000 yuan;

For dairy cattle: for farms with an inventory of 300–499 head, each receives an investment subsidy of 1 million yuan; for farms with an inventory of 500–999 head, each receives an investment subsidy of 2 million yuan; for farms with an inventory of 1,000 head or more, each receives a central investment subsidy of 2.5–5 million yuan;

For laying hens: if the rearing scale is over 10,000 head, the subsidy is 500,000 yuan……

Under the stimulus of the support policies, countless herders, cooperatives, and animal husbandry enterprises began to increase investment, allowing the animal husbandry and agriculture of Grassland Province to usher in unprecedented vigorous development!

Starting January 4, the year-end season arrived again; counties and districts began submitting economic data, and all leading cadres focused on the upcoming annual target responsibility assessment, because last year's painful lessons are still fresh in mind—the bottom-ranked municipal party secretary and provincial department heads had been reassigned, and nobody wants to be that unlucky person.

Lu Fan convened a five-person group meeting to research and formulate this year's assessment method.

At the meeting, Lu Fan said: "Again it is year-end; all work has entered the final stage, and the assessment work is about to begin."

"Assessment not only can motivate cadres to take responsibility and act, but also can further promote the implementation of work deployments, realizing the intentions of the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government. Therefore, the year-end assessment must firmly grasp the 'wind vane', accurately, solidly, and well evaluate the year's gains and losses."

After the assessment results are out, the Provincial Party Committee must adhere to combining strict management with deep care, balancing incentives and constraints, rewarding diligence and punishing laziness, rewarding excellence and punishing poor performance, and must continue last year's policy: the bottom-ranked unit must adjust its work posts.

First, I will share my opinion on indicator scoring; various economic indicators are of paramount importance—GDP, growth rate of value-added of industries above designated size, fixed asset investment, net increase of enterprises above designated size, fiscal revenue growth rate, urban and rural residents' two income items, implementation of education reform, implementation of medical reform, animal husbandry and agriculture development, and integrity of the leadership team—these ten indicators should account for 90 points.

As for the other vague indicators, they are all roughly the same; we should not widen the score gap, and just judge heroes by actual performance!

In addition, the evaluation of each city must be led by a member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee or a vice governor; I am responsible for the provincial capital Qingcheng City, Governor Shiyu is responsible for Yike City, and Chengzhi is responsible for Jiuyuan City.

We must apply a single standard, ensuring fairness, impartiality, and openness, so that everyone is wholeheartedly convinced of the evaluation results.

Luo Shiyu said: "The secretary's approach is excellent—direct, straightforward, and simple, using the work most valued by the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government as the basis for evaluation; I fully agree."

Bai Chengzhi said: "The evaluation should be done this way, with clear goals, clear responsibilities, clear supervision, and clear criteria, to better harness the guiding and directional role of evaluation, fully stimulating the initiative, proactivity, and creativity of officials at all levels; I support it."

Du Wenlong and Shang Youyang likewise expressed approval; the general direction of this year's assessment method has thus been set, but it still needs the Organization Department to refine and perfect.