Strong forestry and benefit-farming policies help the forestry industry grow bigger and stronger

——Series report on the results of the collective forest tenure reform, Part IV

As a major and profound change, the forest reform, while completing the main reform task of clarifying property rights and contracting to households, implemented supporting reforms, introduced related policies and measures, and established a modern forestry property rights system, accelerating the flow of capital and other production factors to rural areas and becoming a booster and accelerator for the development of the forestry industry and the ecological economy.

Strong forestry and benefit-forestry policies achieved multiple breakthroughs

In recent years, the central government and localities have attached great importance to advancing forestry development through forest tenure reform, and have successively introduced a series of policies and measures. Strong forestry and benefit-forestry policies achieved multiple breakthroughs:
The public finance system supporting forestry development was further improved. Forest management was included in the central government budget for the first time; the central government allocated 500 million yuan to carry out a pilot subsidy program for tending young and middle-aged forests on 5 million mu. The afforestation subsidy standard was raised from 100 yuan per mu to 200 yuan per mu. The ecological benefit compensation standard was further raised; the compensation standard for national-level public welfare forests was raised from 5 yuan per mu per year to 10 yuan, and Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu, Hubei, Beijing and other provinces and municipalities raised it to 15-60 yuan.
A major breakthrough was made in forestry financial policy. The insured amount and premium rate of policy-based forest insurance were set according to the principle of “low premiums, cost protection, broad coverage.” Forest tenure mortgage loans were promoted, forestry credit supply was increased, the fiscal interest subsidy policy for forestry loans was improved, and the “bottleneck” of insufficient funds for forestry production was effectively addressed. Localities promoted small-amount interest-subsidized forestry loans and actively explored various loan models such as financial institution + guarantee company + forest household, financial institution + leading enterprise + forest household, and joint guarantee loans among forest farmers, increasing financing channels for forestry operators.
Forestry tax and fee policies underwent major adjustments. The collection ratio of the afforestation fund was lowered from the current 20% to no more than 10%, reducing the burden on forestry production and operators.
Opinions were issued on collective forest harvesting management, the development of farmers' forestry professional cooperatives, and collective forest tenure transfer management, improving the timber harvesting management mechanism and reforming the commercial forest harvesting quota management.
Policies and measures for the development of the forestry industry were issued. The forestry industry revitalization plan and the oil-tea camellia industry development plan were promulgated, identifying and accelerating the development of 10 major forestry pillar industries including wood processing, wood pulp and papermaking, forest products chemicals, and forestry biomass energy.

Ecological capital guided a large influx of funds into forestry

Driven by forestry investment and financing policies of the central government and localities, forestry investment increased substantially. In 2009 alone, central forestry investment reached 69.17 billion yuan, an increase of 13.9%, setting a new record high. The scale of forestry loans from various financial institutions reached 24 billion yuan, with 16 billion yuan in interest-subsidized forestry loans and 650 million yuan in central fiscal interest subsidy funds implemented.
Forest tenure certificates entered market transactions. Forest land and trees were transferred as assets and used as collateral for loans to obtain financing, realizing the transformation of forests from “living resources” to “living capital.” At present, more than 480 forest tenure management and trading service institutions have been established nationwide, with 72.7 million mu of collective forest transferred, a transfer amount of 19.2 billion yuan, 22.6 million mu of forest tenure mortgaged, and 13.2 billion yuan in loans obtained.
The implementation of the forest insurance policy wove a risk prevention net for forest farmers developing forestry. At present, the national insured forest area is 177 million mu, with an insured amount of 82 billion yuan.
As the forest reform advanced in depth, farmers creatively began capital operations, revitalizing forest resource assets, using their own mountain forests as capital for joint operations with enterprises, and attracting enterprises to participate in forestry. At the same time, financial institutions also began to pay attention to forestry, directing large amounts of funds into forestry.

The forestry industry moved toward large-scale and intensive development

The optimized allocation of production factors such as capital, technology and labor solved the problem of insufficient funds for forestry development, promoted large-scale forestry and intensive industrial operations, injected new vitality into the development of a number of pillar industries such as forest cultivation, breeding and seedling raising, forest tourism, economic forest fruits, and bamboo, rattan and flowers, and drove the rapid development of the forestry industry and related sectors such as processing, transportation and breeding.
Ningshan County in Shaanxi guided farmers to vigorously develop the forestry industry based mainly on “one fungus and three gardens” (edible fungi, chestnut gardens, walnut gardens, and medicinal herb gardens), under-forest specialty planting and breeding based mainly on the cultivation of Polyporus umbellatus and Gastrodia elata and under-forest free-range chicken farming, and ecological tourism based mainly on the development of mountain forest landscape resources, prospering forestry and enriching the people. The county developed more than 15 million bags of bagged edible fungi, grafted 2.1 million chestnut trees, built more than 15,000 mu of walnut gardens, mulberry gardens and medicinal herb gardens, and developed more than 100 agritourism households.
Linzhang County in Hebei formulated preferential policies to support the wood processing industry, and timber processing gradually became an emerging leading industry in local economic development.