Support for agriculture investment mechanism needs improvement, agricultural law enforcement inspection report points out
Legal Daily, Beijing, November 2 - Reporter Zhang Yuan: The 17th session of the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress today heard a report delivered by Zhang Baowen, Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, on the inspection of the implementation of the Agricultural Law by the Law Enforcement Inspection Team of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
According to the 2015 supervision work plan of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the inspection team of the Standing Committee inspected the implementation of the Agricultural Law from April to September this year, focusing on food security, agricultural input and support protection, rural financial services and agricultural ecological compensation.
The report introduced that governments at all levels have increased investment in supporting agriculture in accordance with the provisions of the Agricultural Law. From 2010 to 2014, the national general budget expenditure on agriculture, forestry and water affairs totaled 5,727.2 billion yuan, with an average annual increase of 14.6%. In 2015, the national budget arranged 1,695.3 billion yuan for agriculture, forestry and water affairs expenditure, an increase of 11.4% over the previous year. During the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the central government arranged 1,079 billion yuan in agricultural infrastructure investment, an increase of 499 billion yuan over the "11th Five-Year Plan".
However, the report pointed out that although the amount of fiscal support for agriculture at all levels has been continuously increasing in recent years, there is still a large gap compared with the needs of agricultural development, and the support for agriculture investment mechanism needs improvement. The finances of most cities and counties are mainly used to ensure salaries, operations and stability, and they are unable to increase investment in agriculture and rural public undertakings. Existing support for agriculture investment suffers from problems such as unreasonable structure, dispersed use and low efficiency, and the problem of agriculture-related subsidy projects being "numerous, wide-ranging and small in amount" is prominent.
The report pointed out that at the current stage, China's rural finance is generally lagging in development, the gap between urban and rural financial development is relatively large, and the problem of insufficient rural financial supply remains relatively prominent. Agricultural insurance cannot meet the actual needs of the vast number of farming households, especially new agricultural production and operation entities; the level of protection is relatively low, and the insured amount accounts for only one third of the total production cost.
Agricultural development is prominently constrained by environmental resources
Legal Daily, Beijing, November 2 - Reporter Zhang Yuan: The report on the inspection of the implementation of the Agricultural Law pointed out that China's agricultural development is increasingly prominently constrained by environmental resources, and sustainable development has a long way to go.
The report pointed out that in terms of agricultural ecological and environmental protection, the situation of "valuing development over protection, valuing cities over rural areas, valuing industry over agriculture, and valuing point sources over non-point sources" is relatively common. China's fertilizer use is relatively large and the utilization rate is relatively low, and the amount of fertilizer used for wheat and rice is much higher than the world average. From 2010 to 2014, the national annual use of pesticides for crops was 310,000 tons (converted to pure), the amount used per unit area was relatively high, and the utilization rate was relatively low.
Based on this, the report required that the sense of responsibility and mission should be further enhanced, the main responsibility for agricultural environmental protection should be established, and agricultural environmental protection work should be done well with the concepts of "ecological civilization, environmental friendliness and resource conservation". Continue to implement agricultural ecological and environmental protection policies, strengthen the protection of natural resources such as water sources, land, forests, grasslands and wetlands, and continuously improve policies and measures for ecological compensation. Strictly supervise agricultural inputs, promote low-toxicity biological pesticides and advanced techniques for applying chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and accelerate the implementation of the action to achieve zero growth in chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Strengthen the prevention and control of non-point source pollution, carry out treatment of pollution in production areas, and focus on solving the problem of heavy metal pollution in soil. Promote the resource utilization of agricultural waste, explore an operating mechanism of government support, enterprise operation, social participation and county-wide advancement, and build a governance system for the harmless treatment and resource utilization of agricultural waste.
Promote the formulation of the Food Law and the Rural Finance Law
Legal Daily, Beijing, November 2 - Reporter Zhang Yuan: The report on the inspection of the implementation of the Agricultural Law suggested strengthening agriculture-related legislation to provide legal guarantees for work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers.
The report pointed out that agriculture is one of the priorities proposed by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for strengthening the construction of the legal system of the market economy. This year's Central Document No. 1 proposed that "the connection between rural reform decision-making and legislation should be strengthened, major rural reforms should have a legal basis, legislation should actively adapt to the needs of rural reform and development, and practices proven effective and with mature legislative conditions should be promptly elevated to law".
The report suggested that in the coming period, active efforts should be made to promote the formulation of the Food Law and the Rural Finance Law, and to amend the Seed Law, the Rural Land Contracting Law, the Farmers' Professional Cooperatives Law and the Forestry Law, so as to provide legal guarantees for work related to agriculture, rural areas and farmers.