Industry Must Energetically Support Agriculture

Guided by Chairman Mao's great policy of"taking agriculture as the foundation and industry as the leading sector," great achievements have been made in the support of agriculture by industry in the past few years, especially since the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, thus greatly facilitating the development of socialist agricultural production and providing an enormous driving force for the all-round fulfillment of the"Outline for National Agricultural Development" in the vast countryside. Because China is a large country with a rural population several hundred millions strong, there is still imbalance in the development of this work. In order to transform completely the aspects of agricultural production, it is imperative that the revolutionary spirit of"self-reliance" and"hard struggle" be brought energetically into play and that the support of agriculture by industry be carried out to the letter. At present, however, there are still some comrades who lack adequate understanding with respect to the support of agriculture by industry. They think that products made in support of agriculture"sell at a low price and bring a low margin of profit," are"simple and crude," and do not offer any technical challenge. In short, this amounts to saying that"to support agriculture puts one at a disadvantage."