Central government gives strong support to appropriately scaled grain farming

Recently, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture allocated 143.4 billion yuan in three items of funding: comprehensive agricultural input subsidies, direct subsidies to grain farmers, and crop improved seed subsidies. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture, on the basis of extensively soliciting and listening to opinions from all sides, and after reporting to and receiving approval from the State Council, will carry out the work of adjusting and improving agricultural subsidy policies and pilot implementation. This year, some cities and counties in 5 provinces, including Anhui, Shandong, Sichuan, Hunan and Zhejiang, will be selected to carry out pilot reform of the three agricultural subsidies.

The Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance require that all provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and cities with separate state planning) adjust and arrange 20% of the comprehensive agricultural input subsidy funds allocated by the central government, plus the pilot funds for large grain farmers and incremental subsidy funds, to be coordinated for use in supporting appropriately scaled grain farming. The focus should be tilted toward new types of business entities such as large grain farmers, family farms, farmers' professional cooperatives, and agricultural socialized service organizations. The two ministries also require that all localities take effective measures suited to local conditions, such as agricultural credit guarantees, interest subsidies, direct cash subsidies, and subsidies for the promotion of major agricultural technologies, to support new types of business entities in solving the problems of difficult and expensive financing in appropriately scaled grain farming, improve the level of intensification and socialization of grain production, and transform the development mode of grain production.