Farm input prices are stable with a slight decline, what else do farmers care about when farming?

Editor's note: In order to promptly understand the situation of spring farming preparations for major crops such as grain, cotton, oil and sugar, as well as the market supply and prices of farm inputs and prominent problems, the Information Center of the Ministry of Agriculture, in mid-April, together with the information centers of the agriculture departments (commissions) of ten provinces (regions) including Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Guangxi, Sichuan and Xinjiang, carried out research through on-site visits, questionnaire surveys and other methods. This page excerpts the research report and publishes the expectations of farmers from grassroots survey points, so as to reflect actual grassroots production conditions and provide reference for government decision-making.

Farmers still have “seven hopes” for farming

Policy, technology and information, not one can be missing

The research found that farmers encounter some problems in spring farming production and put forward seven major hopes, which require relevant departments to attach great importance to and solve as soon as possible.

1

Hope for smooth information service channels

Timely, accurate and forward-looking information is an important basis for farmers' production and operation decisions. In this survey, the most urgent and concentrated reflections on information needs were mainly in the following aspects:

First, market, meteorological and other information services should further reach villages and households. Farmers in some main producing areas have limited channels for obtaining information, have a “fear” of uncertain factors such as the market and weather, are unsure about “what to plant” and “how to plant”, and blindly follow trends in planting decisions. Farmers in Laizhou City, Shandong Province, very much want to know the market conditions of agricultural products and the prices of farm inputs, while farmers in Jianping County, Liaoning Province, most hope to receive meteorological services.

At present, agricultural production and operation are highly market-oriented. Farmers, large growers, cooperatives and others all strongly desire information from formal and authoritative channels on market demand, price forecasts, structural adjustment and product sales.

It is suggested to continue strengthening government public-benefit agricultural information services, accelerate the delivery of information to households through informatization means, and improve farmers' ability to cope with market risks and natural risks. Second, increase the publicity and interpretation of the soybean target price policy, so that farmers truly understand the purpose of the target price policy and can make reasonable decisions.

2

Hope for prominent policy support priorities

As the scale of land transfer continues to expand in various places (among the surveyed counties and cities, the transferred land area in Changyuan County, Henan Province, reached 34% of the county's cultivated land area, and the transferred land area in Changtu County, Liaoning Province, accounted for 30.7%), new agricultural production and operation entities are playing an increasingly important role in modern agricultural development, but the current universally beneficial grain subsidy policy has not truly benefited this new force. In the survey, new agricultural operation entities hoped to receive greater support.

In major grain-producing areas such as Henan and Heilongjiang, specialized large households, family farms and professional cooperatives hope to gradually expand the pilot scope of subsidies for large grain-growing households, and hope subsidies can be distributed to households before spring farming. Jilin, Hebei and other provinces suggest integrating funds for improved seed subsidies, direct grain-growing subsidies and comprehensive farm input subsidies together and distributing them uniformly, to reduce the cost of fund distribution work and the cost for farmers to receive them; preferential subsidies such as subsidies for rice seedling greenhouses and subsidies for promoting early maturity should be used in a concentrated way, integrated into subsidies for specific project construction, and tilted toward family farms and professional cooperatives, so as to give play to the overall pro-farmer effect of funds.

3

Hope for real improvement in agricultural infrastructure

At present, there are many outstanding debts in grassroots farmland water conservancy infrastructure, but these are not something that individual farming households can solve, or solve well.

Farmers in Changyuan County, Henan Province, reported that because river water does not come in time for agricultural irrigation, the cost of using well water to irrigate land in recent years has been high. Farmers in Jianhu County, Jiangsu Province, are worried about the water source for spring irrigation and urgently hope that relevant departments at all levels will actively take action to solve the spring irrigation water source problem. Most of western Jilin Province currently has relatively severe soil moisture deficiency; as temperatures rise, drought is more likely during spring sowing, while some plots in the east have excessively wet soil, and farmers generally expressed concern. The northwestern part surveyed in Liaoning Province may also face spring drought. It is suggested that relevant departments prepare early for drought resistance and drainage, ensure smooth progress of spring farming, and accelerate the construction of farmland water conservancy facilities to effectively improve comprehensive agricultural production capacity.

4

Hope for a standardized and orderly farm input market

Farmers in Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Jiangsu and other places reported that illegal acts such as the production and sale of counterfeit and inferior farm inputs still exist in the farm input market: the quality of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is poor, content and quantity are falsified, and ingredients are vague; problems such as seed packaging fraud, passing off inferior goods as good ones, and selling varieties beyond their suitable regions have still not been eradicated. Farmers are “afraid of buying fake fertilizers and fake seeds”, and if they do buy them, “complaints are difficult and defending rights is difficult”. Farmers in Yizheng City, Jiangsu Province, reported that regardless of whether hybrid rice sold on the local market is hybrid indica or hybrid japonica, the price is 40 yuan to 60 yuan/jin, and the pricing standard for hybrid rice seeds is unclear. Grassroots agricultural departments reported that in recent years the state and various provinces have approved many varieties, and the phenomenon of many, chaotic and mixed varieties sold on the market is serious, bringing difficulties to the promotion of high-yield cultivation techniques and at the same time affecting the stability of grain production.

Suggestions: First, the state should standardize the seed pricing standards for hybrid rice varieties to ensure that the prices of hybrid rice varieties on the market fluctuate within a reasonable range; second, implement a subsidy model of centralized procurement through bidding for improved seeds, that is, relevant government technical departments select the main varieties most suitable for planting in the region, determine prices through centralized bidding, and distribute subsidies to farmers who purchase the main varieties. It is suggested that various functional departments such as agriculture and industry and commerce join hands to take effective measures, strengthen supervision and standardize the farm input market, so that farmers can buy farm inputs with confidence and engage in production with peace of mind.

⟦NL