Difficulties in Implementing Agricultural Machinery Purchase Subsidies Urgently Need Attention

Since the self-purchase machinery subsidy was incorporated into the national "three subsidies, two reductions" policy supporting agriculture and benefiting farmers, farmers' enthusiasm for purchasing machinery and growing grain has greatly increased. At the same time, it has promoted agricultural efficiency, increased grain production, and played an important role in optimizing the equipment structure, raising the level of agricultural mechanization development, promoting stable agricultural development and sustained increases in farmers' incomes. However, during grassroots research, it was found that in the implementation of the agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy, there are still some constraining factors that should draw the attention of all departments.

First, there is still a gap in subsidy funds. With the implementation of the subsidy policy, China's level of agricultural mechanization has continuously improved, and farmers' demand for purchasing and using machinery has increased year by year. Taking Gaomi City, Shandong Province as an example, in 2014 the number of people applying for machinery purchase subsidies was 1,309 households, including 126 households registered for scrapping subsidies and 1,183 households for new machinery purchase subsidies. The applied subsidy funds reached 39.2214 million yuan, while Gaomi City secured 21.9 million yuan in national subsidy funds, far from being able to meet the needs of the vast number of farming households.

Second, after-sales service is difficult to keep up. In recent years, farmers' demand for agricultural machinery has gradually developed toward high performance, high quality and diversification. Therefore, new types of agricultural machinery are very popular. However, because the machinery ordering period is relatively concentrated and demand is large, some manufacturers rush production, leading to problems with machinery quality not meeting standards. Especially during key agricultural production seasons, the supply of machinery parts is not in place, and damaged machinery cannot be repaired in time, seriously delaying farming seasons.

Third, there are difficulties in subsidy supervision. In 2014, Gaomi City's machinery purchase subsidy method implemented for the first time "full-price machinery purchase, fixed subsidy, county-level settlement, direct subsidy to card." Subsidy funds were directly issued to eligible farmers through the Huimin subsidy passbook. The new policy further enhanced the transparent operation of subsidy funds. However, it still could not avoid the phenomenon of some farmers seizing quota spots. After receiving the subsidy quota confirmation form, they delayed purchasing machinery, resulting in users with genuine needs being unable to enjoy the subsidy policy.

Fourth, subsidy acceptance inspection is relatively difficult. To ensure that the subsidy policy truly benefits the people, agricultural machinery staff need to visit each household to inspect the machinery and keep photos of "person, machine, certificate" on file. During the inspection period, phenomena such as farmers not being at home, being away for work, phones being turned off, service suspended, or no one answering often occur. Some farmers are even unwilling to cooperate with machinery inspection, which affects the summary and reporting of subsidized machinery and also causes inspection work to consume a large amount of manpower and material resources.