Agricultural subsidy policies benefit business entities more

The "Government Work Report" emphasizes that this year's grain output must be stabilized at more than 1.1 trillion jin, to ensure food security and the supply of major agricultural products. No matter how difficult the finances are, policies benefiting farmers can only be strengthened, not weakened, and funds supporting agriculture can only be increased, not reduced.

“If agriculture is to develop, the state needs to continuously increase its investment in agricultural subsidies.” Qiao Xinjiang, a deputy to the National People's Congress and mayor of Xinyang City, Henan Province, said in an interview with reporters that existing agricultural subsidy policies have worked very well in increasing farmers' incomes and supporting agricultural production, but the subsidy targets are still not clear enough and their role is subject to certain constraints. In particular, there are still relatively few support policies for new types of business entities, and these need to be further strengthened.

Qiao Xinjiang introduced that Xinyang, as a major grain-producing city, has maintained a grain planting area of more than 12 million mu. In 2014, Xinyang was awarded the title of “National Advanced City in Grain Production” by the Ministry of Agriculture for the third consecutive year. Regarding modern agricultural development, Qiao Xinjiang suggested that the state should continue to expand the recipients of subsidies, promote a shift in subsidies toward new types of business entities, and further improve agricultural subsidy policies. In places where conditions permit, pilot programs should be explored to subsidize producers according to the actual grain sown area or output, so as to improve the precision and targeting of subsidies; special funds should be set aside from the national agricultural machinery purchase subsidy to subsidize machinery purchases by large machinery households and cooperatives; and a reward-in-place-of-subsidy approach should be adopted to directly reward large agricultural machinery or agricultural machinery for key operation stages to some large machinery households or cooperatives with a wide service scope, high operational level, and good credit ratings.

“At present, the central and provincial funding standard for the work of confirming, registering, and issuing certificates for rural land contractual management rights is a subsidy of 15 yuan per mu based on statistical area. According to the progress of work in the pilot areas of Xinyang City, about 30 yuan per mu is needed, and the actual measured land area far exceeds the statistical area, resulting in a relatively large funding gap. Xinyang City's financial situation is tight, and it is suggested that the state provide more supporting funds to promote the smooth progress of the work.” Qiao Xinjiang said.

In recent years, with the promotion and popularization of standardized rice cultivation techniques, dry seedling raising, seedling throwing, and other light cultivation techniques, as well as the replacement of rice varieties and pesticide varieties and the impact of abnormal climate, the types, populations, and occurrence patterns of rice pests in Xinyang City have undergone major changes. In particular, migratory pests and epidemic diseases such as rice planthoppers, rice leaf rollers, and rice blast have caused losses to agricultural production. Implementing specialized unified prevention and control of major crop pests and diseases is an effective way to solve this problem. Qiao Xinjiang suggested that this year the state should increase the implementation of specialized unified prevention and control of major crop pests and diseases, focus on supporting a group of large-scale, well-equipped specialized prevention and control organizations to carry out unified prevention and control and emergency prevention and control, promote mass prevention and mass control, improve the level of organization and scientific management of prevention and control, and effectively control the harm of major pests and diseases.