Awarded for its policy innovation in agriculture and rural areas for the past four years, Taicang has taken the lead in rural reform in Jiangsu. Recently, a notice issued by Taicang was listed as an innovative agricultural and rural policy by the Office of the Jiangsu Rural Work Leading Group.

Labor cooperatives focus on labor cooperation of local farmers to meet the needs of the market economy. As early as 2001, Huajing Labor Cooperative, the first rural labor cooperative in the country, was founded in Fuqiao, setting up a great model for rural labor cooperatives. So far, Taicang has established 92 labor cooperatives with over 10,000 farmers. Their annual labor income has now surpassed 10,000 yuan ($1,625). These cooperatives cover green conservation, property management and household management services.

According to Gu Liqing, head of the Huajing Labor Cooperative, the service items they offer have increased each year. Labor revenue has doubled annually in the past 10 years. Farmer incomes have been rising at an average annual income of 30,000 yuan to 60,000 yuan.

To further accelerate the development of rural labor cooperatives and benefit farmers, a notice was issued by Taicang on November 10, 2013. The notice formulated many specific agricultural and rural policies, for example, a government subsidy of 20,000 yuan to be offered to standardize and develop cooperatives.

Taicang has made a lot of achievements in innovating policy initiatives and deepening rural reform. The city came up with several polices to deepen rural reform from 2010 to 2012.

Promoting innovation in agricultural and rural policy is an important part of deepening rural reform. An officer said that Taicang has achieved a lot in recent years. It leads rural reform and innovation in many aspects in Jiangsu, perhaps even throughout the country.

In the recent CPC Agricultural Meeting, issues related to the direction and strategy for the new round of rural reform and development were deployed. Taicang will implement superior instructions in conjunction with the practical situation in Taicang to continuously deepen rural reform and innovation, especially regarding "three rural issues" work. It will deepen rural reform of the "five cooperations," explore rural financial system reform, speed up reform for the rural collective land system and the property rights system, and pursue financial management system reform. It will further balance urban and rural development, accelerating agricultural modernization.