Huimin policies must not be distorted or watered down: how does the Ministry of Agriculture implement its services for farmers?
On the evening of January 15, in the Ministry of Agriculture office building on the east side of Changhong Bridge on the East Third Ring Road in Beijing, lights were still on in quite a few offices, and many staff members were still busily working at computers and beside printers.
“With only about ten days left before the launch of the ‘science and technology service cloud platform’, everyone is busy refining some details.” A relevant official from the Department of Science, Technology and Education of the Ministry of Agriculture told reporters that in order to improve the coverage rate of agricultural science and technology reaching households, they will soon launch the “science and technology service cloud platform”, so that information on experts from the national industrial technology system, grassroots agricultural technology extension personnel, key farmers, and science and technology demonstration households can all enter the platform, using information technology to raise the level of the agricultural technology extension team. “At the same time, we will also launch the National Agricultural Technology Transfer Center to build a platform for the transformation and promotion of the achievements of agricultural researchers.”
Since last year, the Ministry of Agriculture has carried out in-depth special rectification work on government conduct and industry conduct, focusing on solving problems such as farmers having difficulty getting things done, huimin policies being watered down and distorted, and market supervision being inadequate, and has carried out “serving farmers” activities to clear the “last kilometer” of service to the farming masses.
Increase agricultural technology extension and improve service levels
“Thanks to the new technology promoted by the agricultural technician, my family’s corn was able to achieve a bumper harvest, with a yield of more than 800 kg per mu, an increase of 60 to 70 kg over the previous year!” said Liu Guiyue, a major grain-growing household in De’an Village, Shangjieji Town, Fujin City, Heilongjiang Province.
During last year’s autumn sowing, under the guidance of agricultural technicians at all levels, Liu Guiyue and his fellow villagers mostly adopted the large-ridge double-row planting technique. “Large-ridge double-row is suitable for close planting, with 20,000 more plants per hectare than before, and it helps preserve warmth, with good results for fertilizing and protecting seedlings. The large ridge is also more suitable for large agricultural machinery operations, and can harvest 40 hectares per day, raising operational efficiency by 9 times compared with the original small-ridge planting.” Liu Guiyue praised it repeatedly; in the past, growing grain relied entirely on experience and feel, “now the most important thing is to listen to the agricultural technician.”
⟦NL> What do farmers need most? The Ministry of Agriculture started from the weak links in science and technology extension, and while strengthening the construction of the grassroots agricultural technology extension system, organized 700,000 experts and agricultural technology personnel from national agricultural scientific research, teaching, and extension units to carry out in-depth technical training and guidance services. In 2014, a total of 175,000 grassroots agricultural technology personnel and 1.406 million farmers were trained, promoting the “rooting” of industrial scientific and technological achievements. At the same time, mobile classrooms for new-type professional farmers were opened, playing a supporting role in the “eleventh consecutive increase” in grain output.
At the same time, in response to problems such as farmers in some places having difficulty getting things done and follow-up work for delegated administrative approval matters not keeping up, the Ministry of Agriculture organized and formulated a detailed implementation plan for follow-up work on cancelled and delegated approval matters, unified approval standards, improved approval procedures, extended performance management, advanced the standardization of administrative approval, and supervised all localities in formulating and publishing administrative approval work norms and service guides.
With top-level design in place, all localities combined actual conditions to streamline administration, delegate power, and optimize services in a more targeted way. In response to complaints from municipal and county agricultural departments about the many links and long time limits in agricultural administrative approval, Hubei Province intensified efforts to advance reform of the administrative approval system, achieving reductions in items, links, time limits, and fees.
Policies are not distorted, farmers’ benefits are not watered down
At present, problems still exist in some places of misappropriating agricultural subsidies and project development funds, and even abusing power for personal gain and power rent-seeking. In response, the Ministry of Agriculture carried out pilot reform of the “five to the province, one linked” management model for transfer payment projects such as grassland ecological protection subsidies and rewards, support for the production of “vegetable basket” products, and reform and construction of the grassroots agricultural technology extension system, namely: allocating project funds to the province in blocks, assigning target tasks to the province, delegating approval authority to the province, clarifying management responsibility to the province, extending performance management to the province, and linking assessment results to fund arrangements.
“To advance the construction of government conduct and industry conduct in the agricultural system, we must reflect industry characteristics, give play to system advantages, persist in upward and downward linkage, with the upper leading the lower and the lower promoting the upper, and advance in a coordinated way, especially focusing on problems in the implementation of policies to strengthen agriculture, benefit farmers, and enrich farmers, agricultural project management, and supervision of agricultural research funds.” A relevant official from the Ministry of Agriculture said.
The Ministry of Agriculture strengthened the extended performance management of subsidy for agricultural machinery purchases and the reform and construction project of the grassroots agricultural technology extension system, and explored carrying out special audits. Special inspections were carried out on grain-growing subsidies, fishery fuel price subsidy policies, and livestock and poultry improved breed projects, strictly correcting and handling violations of regulations and discipline such as falsification, false reporting and fraudulent claims, and fraudulent subsidy claims.
Led by the Ministry of Agriculture, agricultural departments at all levels carried out cleanup and standardization work in the field of agriculture-related funds. Anhui Province implemented unified management of agriculture-related funds with dedicated funds, dedicated accounts, and dedicated ledgers, directly crediting them to households by card; fiscal allocation implemented closed operation and socialized distribution; after project acceptance, a fiscal reimbursement system was implemented, and project funds were allocated after approval by the local government.
Strengthen market supervision and safeguard farmers’ rights and interests
For farmers, counterfeit and inferior seeds and pesticides are the most harmful; for consumers, illegal additives such as “lean meat powder” and “pesticide residues exceeding standards” are the most abhorrent. Strengthening supervision, protecting farmers’ rights and interests from infringement, and investigating and handling illegal incidents are important responsibilities of agricultural departments.
“In order to improve the standardization level of comprehensive agricultural law enforcement and better serve the farming masses, through recommendation, application, and on-site verification, we named 10 agricultural comprehensive law enforcement agencies, including the Agricultural Administrative Comprehensive Law Enforcement Brigade of Dongtai City, Jiangsu Province, as ‘National Agricultural Comprehensive Law Enforcement Demonstration Windows’, with the aim of setting a benchmark for strict, standardized, and civilized law enforcement.” A relevant official from the Department of Industrial Policy and Regulations of the Ministry of Agriculture told reporters.
By the end of last year, the Ministry of Agriculture’s routine monitoring scope had expanded to 153 large and medium-sized cities, 86 varieties, and 94 parameters, with more than 40,000 samples inspected, basically covering major cities, production areas, varieties, and parameters, focusing on investigating common problems and possible industry “unspoken rules”.
Last year, the Ministry of Agriculture carried out in-depth special rectification actions, including 7 special governance actions on pesticides and pesticide use, “lean meat powder”, prohibited substances in raw milk, veterinary antibacterial drugs, livestock and poultry slaughtering, prohibited drugs in aquatic products, and cracking down on counterfeit agricultural materials. Over the year, a total of 1.41 million production and operating units were inspected, and 79 cases were transferred to judicial organs. 26,000 tons of fake and inferior agricultural materials were seized, recovering 470 million yuan in direct economic losses for farmers. Over the year, China did not have any major agricultural product quality and safety incidents, and the qualification rates for vegetables, livestock and poultry, and aquatic products were 96.3%, 99.2%, and 93.6% respectively, generally remaining at a relatively high level.