Government Purchase of Agricultural Socialized Services Becomes a Development Trend

Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture has established a document drafting group on the topic of “agricultural socialized services”, to discuss the application of the “government purchase of services” policy in agricultural socialized services, incremental reform of preferential agricultural policies, and related matters.

“Government purchase of agricultural socialized services” becomes a development trend

In a country with a relatively high degree of agricultural modernization, socialized services are the general trend. In the United States, people directly engaged in agriculture account for only 1.9% of the national labor force, but people serving agriculture account for 20%. In the domestic situation, fewer and fewer people are farming the land, feeling the work is too tiring, unprofitable, undignified, and so on, while cultivating and developing new types of production entities and diverse service entities can precisely solve the difficult problem of who will farm the land and how to farm it. It cannot be denied that in the process of cultivating and developing new types of production entities and advancing agricultural socialized services, government purchase of services will become a development trend.

It is reported that the application of “government purchase of services” in agricultural socialized services has already been piloted in many places. However, research has found that most regions are still at the conceptual stage regarding government purchase of agricultural socialized services, and the scope of government purchase of services still needs to be further defined. At present, the service areas involving government funds, such as unified prevention and control, mechanical tillage, mechanical transplanting, and mechanical harvesting, belong to quasi-public or non-public services, and can be effectively operated through market entities such as specialized service teams or cooperatives, while the government purchase supply mechanism in the truly public-welfare agricultural service sector still needs further research and exploration.

At the same time, it is understood that many operating entities undertaking government-purchased agricultural socialized service projects are only in a state of meager profit under government subsidies; without financial support, they would not venture into the field of agricultural socialized services at all. Therefore, exploring a sustainable dynamic mechanism to mobilize market entities to participate in agricultural socialized services should be the focus of consideration in the next step of policy formulation.