Agricultural subsidy policy warms farmers' hearts

"Today's subsidy policies are getting better and better. We can buy the machine first and then apply for the subsidy, with one-stop service, saving us a lot of unnecessary trips. It really takes farmers' needs to heart." Recently, Xie Wenbin, a member of the Wang Lei Agricultural Machinery Professional Cooperative in Xiaotao Village, Gaocheng Town, Gaoqing County, Shandong Province, said happily after seeing the "Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of Agricultural Machinery Purchase Subsidies for 2015-2017" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions").

Gaoqing County is a traditional agricultural plain county. In recent years, driven by the national agricultural machinery purchase subsidy policy, farmers' enthusiasm for buying machines has run high. Large numbers of farmers have engaged in cross-regional agricultural machinery operations, land transfer, specialty planting, agricultural machinery transportation and other operational projects, embarking on the road to prosperity by relying on agricultural machinery. According to statistics, the county's agricultural machinery professional cooperatives have grown to 27, and cross-regional agricultural machinery operations alone have increased local farmers' annual per capita income by more than 300 yuan.

At present, the issuance of the Central Document No. 1 has boosted farmers' confidence in growing grain. In particular, after the "Opinions" were issued this year, they aroused strong reactions among the vast number of farmer machinery operators, as the new subsidy policy is more convenient and more down-to-earth. On the basis of previous years' practice of "full-price machine purchase, fixed-quota subsidy, county-level settlement, direct subsidy to card," the new policy has changed to a method of "independent machine purchase, fixed-quota subsidy, county-level settlement, direct subsidy to card." Although there is a difference of only two characters, the significance is far-reaching. The subsidy targets have been expanded to all individuals and organizations engaged in agricultural production, including not only farmers, herders and fishermen, and staff of farms (forest farms), but also other residents directly engaged in agricultural production, including not only farmers' cooperatives and family farms, but also agricultural enterprises directly engaged in agricultural production, etc.; subsidy categories have been concentrated toward major crops such as grain, cotton, oil and sugar. In accordance with the requirement that "grain is basically self-sufficient and food rations are absolutely safe," subsidy funds are focused on machinery needed for key links in the production of major crops such as grain, cotton, oil and sugar, while also taking into account machinery needed for the development of animal husbandry, fisheries, protected agriculture, forestry and fruit industries, and preliminary processing of agricultural products, striving to use 3 years to focus on raising the level of full-process mechanization in the production of major crops such as grain, cotton, oil and sugar.

There is another highlight in the "Opinions," namely open subsidies for key categories. Implementing a generalized preference system for key categories can, on the one hand, concentrate funds to subsidize key areas and raise the level of full-process mechanization in major crop production and China's production capacity for major agricultural products, and on the other hand simplify procedures, reduce approval links such as determining subsidy targets, and prevent rent-seeking by power.

The subsidy process is simpler and information is more open. The "Opinions" require all localities, on the premise of ensuring fund safety, to further simplify procedures and reduce the number of trips farmers must make to apply and receive subsidies. It advocates that subsidy recipients buy machines first and then apply for subsidies, and encourages counties and townships to carry out "one-stop" services for accepting applications and verifying registration at centralized machine purchase locations or local government service halls. At the same time, it is also necessary to further speed up fund settlement so that farmers can receive subsidies as soon as possible after purchasing machines, maximizing convenience for the farming masses. The implementation of all these reform measures has made agricultural machinery purchase subsidies truly "supplement" farmers' hearts.