Strengthen agriculture-related legislation to provide solid legal protection for agriculture, rural areas and farmers
On November 2, Zhang Baowen, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, delivered a report on behalf of the Law Enforcement Inspection Team of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress at the 17th session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress on the inspection of the implementation of the Agriculture Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the “Report”), in which he stated that according to this year's supervision work plan of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the inspection team of the Standing Committee conducted an inspection of the implementation of the Agriculture Law from April to September this year and formed a report on the relevant circumstances.
Zhang Baowen pointed out that at present, China's economic development has entered a new normal, and in the process of coordinating the advancement of new industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization, agricultural modernization remains the weak link.
Face up to the difficulties and problems in law implementation
The current Agriculture Law has been implemented since January 1, 2013 after its latest revision. As a foundational law among agriculture-related laws, whether it can be earnestly implemented is of great significance to the existing rural guidelines and policies, especially the land contract policy, to accelerating agricultural modernization, strengthening the foundational position of agriculture, transforming the mode of agricultural development, improving comprehensive agricultural production capacity, safeguarding national food security, promoting farmers' income growth, strengthening agricultural ecological governance, and raising the level of agricultural product quality and safety.
The report holds that in recent years, the implementation of the Agriculture Law has generally been good, showing such results as the continuous improvement of comprehensive agricultural production capacity, the gradual increase of investment in “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”, the further enhancement of agricultural science and technology support capacity, the placing of agricultural non-point source pollution control on the agenda, the intensification of rural reform, the sustained growth of farmers' income, and the achievement of phased results in poverty alleviation and development.
In this regard, Zhang Baowen pointed out that although the agricultural and rural economic situation has continued to improve in recent years, providing strong support for “stabilizing growth, adjusting structure, promoting reform and benefiting the people's livelihood”, the work related to “agriculture, rural areas and farmers” still faces many difficulties and problems.
First, agricultural infrastructure remains weak. Due to reasons such as the widening price gap between domestic and foreign agricultural products, since 2008 China has changed from a net grain exporter to a net grain importer. The area of degraded cultivated land accounts for more than 40% of the total cultivated land area. In some places, farmland water conservancy facilities have long been in disrepair, and the capacity for drought resistance and drainage is not strong. The “last kilometer” problem of farmland water conservancy remains prominent, and in many places the situation of agriculture depending on the weather has not fundamentally changed.
Second, the total amount of funds supporting agriculture is relatively small. In recent years, although the amount of fiscal support for agriculture at all levels has continued to increase, there is still a relatively large gap compared with the needs of agricultural development, and the input mechanism for supporting agriculture needs to be improved.
Third, agricultural non-point source pollution is relatively severe. In terms of agricultural ecological and environmental protection, the situation of “emphasizing development over protection, emphasizing cities over rural areas, emphasizing industry over agriculture, and emphasizing point sources over non-point sources” is relatively common. China's fertilizer use is relatively large and its utilization rate is relatively low, and the amount of fertilizer used for wheat and rice is much higher than the world average.
Fourth, it is difficult for farmers to continue increasing income, and the task of poverty alleviation and development is arduous. Farmers' household operating income is squeezed by both the cost “floor” and the price “ceiling”, and ordinary farming households have limited returns from growing grain. In poverty alleviation and development work, problems such as imperfect coordination mechanisms, insufficient funds, scattered channels and lagging supervision remain relatively prominent.
Fifth, the grain purchase and storage mechanism needs to be improved. At present, China has established a four-level reserve system at the central, provincial, prefectural (municipal) and county levels. Fiscal authorities at all levels, especially the central finance, bear the costs of all links in the purchase, sale, transportation and rotation of reserve grain, and the burden is relatively heavy.
Promote reform according to law and shore up the weak links in rural areas
On how to ensure that rural areas do not hold back the process of fully achieving moderate prosperity, Zhang Baowen stressed that it is necessary, in accordance with the arrangements of the Central Committee and the requirements of the Agriculture Law, to continuously consolidate and improve the basic rural economic system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, accelerate the transformation of agricultural production methods, strive to improve comprehensive agricultural production capacity, and improve the institutional mechanisms for safeguarding national food security, sustainable agricultural development and sustained growth of farmers' income.
In this regard, the report clearly put forward six suggestions:
First, increase investment and improve comprehensive agricultural production capacity. This includes optimizing the structure of fiscal input, increasing the total amount of fiscal input, accelerating the pace of farmland water conservancy construction, increasing investment in agricultural infrastructure construction in key links, deeply advancing the integration of agriculture-related funds, and striving to improve the level of rural financial services.
Second, actively advance rural reform. This includes deepening the reform of the rural land system, doing a good job in pilot reforms for rural land expropriation, market entry of collective operating construction land, and the homestead system; improving the agricultural input mechanism, establishing a stable growth mechanism for investment in “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”, and making agriculture and rural areas a priority area for fiscal expenditure, and so on.
Third, give full play to the role of seed industry science and technology and agricultural socialized services. It is proposed to vigorously support public-interest breeding research, support a breeding innovation system combining industry, universities and research, effectively strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in the seed industry, and encourage original innovation. Solidly advance the construction of the agricultural socialized service system and comprehensively raise the level of agricultural socialized services.
Fourth, strengthen the protection of agricultural resources and the environment. This includes continuing to implement agricultural ecological and environmental protection policies, strictly supervising agricultural inputs, strengthening non-point source pollution prevention and control, and promoting the resource utilization of agricultural waste.
Fifth, strengthen the building of a new socialist countryside and intensify poverty alleviation. Guide urban municipal facilities and services to extend to rural areas, do a good job in the overall planning of rural public service supply, and ensure that rural infrastructure construction, public education services, public medical and health services, etc. are laid out and developed together with those of towns and cities. When arranging poverty alleviation investment, give preference to the central and western regions, especially contiguous areas of extreme poverty and key counties for national poverty alleviation and development work.
Sixth, strengthen agriculture-related legislation. In the coming period, it is necessary to actively promote the enactment of the grain law and the rural finance law, amend the seed law, the rural land contract law, the farmers' professional cooperatives law and the forestry law, and provide legal protection for the work related to “agriculture, rural areas and farmers”.