In China, the first document issued in a given year by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council is referred to as the "No.1 Central Document." 2012 marks the ninth consecutive year in which this document has focused on rural problems, and also its first time addressing agricultural science and technology development. Li Changping, a researcher with the Rural Development and Construction Research Center of Hebei University, believes that scientific and technological innovation is a double-edged sword for farmers. His thoughts are as follows:

The theme of this year's No.1 Document is scientific and technological innovation. This includes underscoring the importance of agricultural science and technology, determining how to remove systemic obstacles, increasing investment and subsidies in the agricultural sector, and promoting "leap-over" agricultural science and technology in order to ensure effective agricultural output as well as increased income for farmers.

In actuality, this year's No.1 Document and those that came before have all aimed at increasing agricultural output. It is a constant, core goal. The difference with this year's policy is that it addresses the issue through a lens of science and technology.

Generally speaking, agricultural output is decided by three factors: enthusiasm for farming, water infrastructure, and progress in agricultural science and technology. Emphasis on scientific and technological innovation should increase agricultural yields, but whether farmers' incomes will benefit from this change is still unknown.

The general consensus is that farmers' incomes rise if there are increases in investment and subsidies across the agricultural sector; the same is assumed for technological advances. While it can be simple to also assume these advances will ease rural poverty, in fact, scientific and technological innovation is a double-edged sword for farmers.

At the macro level, this innovation definitely increases agricultural yields. China's annual grain output increased from over 446 million tons in 1990 to 570 million tons in 2011. Over this period, advancements in hybrid seeds, fertilizer and pesticides played the major part in this growth. However, as output increased it may have prevented prices from rising; in the last 20 years, the purchase price for grain has only increased six-fold. By contrast, costs for seeds, fertilizer and pesticides have multiplied by more than 20. While scientific and technological innovation benefits society at large, farmers are not mutual beneficiaries of this progress.

At the micro level, farmers who own more agricultural machinery or invest more in biochemical technology will have better harvests. They must keep competitive with their investments, continuously upgrading seed, fertilizer and pesticide stocks. But this competition comes at a cost in a market economy, since biochemical producers of items like hybrid seeds tend to pursue monopolistic profits. This cost only increases as technology advances. Still, farmers' fiscal health varies; rich farmers can become wealthier by using new technology even as poorer farmers become more vulnerable. If there is no special policy to protect impoverished farmers, scientific and technological innovation will only impoverish them further.

How to ensure that income for poor farmers will rise as the government increases its scientific and technological spending is an important and realistic problem.

The government should strengthen public welfare technological services in rural areas. The current service system lacks organization and personnel. Repairing this system will give millions access to free agricultural technology services.

The government should also make sure that scientific and technological innovation contributes to broad public. Policies and laws should be made to restrain monopolies from developing among agricultural and biochemical commercial ventures.

Farmers should find support from the government when they unite into groups or associations. As a group they can help each other with technological services, and be equals at the table when talking to agricultural and biochemical technology suppliers. This may help ward off excessive commercialization and monopolization on the part of these companies.

Finally, the government should pay attention to farmers' actual points of view and give full play to their initiative in the stages of production, exchange, distribution and consumption. Farmers are more than just small-time producers in China's large economy. To disregard this idea in this day and age is misguided.