Rural Living Environment Improvement Receives Strong Push from the Ministry of Agriculture
According to this website since the National Conference on Improving Rural Living Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture has earnestly implemented the spirit and arrangements of the conference, accelerated the transformation of agricultural development modes, promoted the coordinated development of modern agriculture construction and living environment improvement, and achieved positive progress in all aspects of improving the rural living environment.
Promote the reduction and quantified use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and reduce agricultural non-point source pollution. In 2014, the central government allocated 700 million yuan to support 2,463 project counties (farms, units) in implementing soil testing and formulated fertilization subsidy projects, covering 540,000 villages and providing soil testing and formulated fertilization technical services to 190 million farming households free of charge. The central government allocated 650 million yuan to support plant protection professional service organizations and new agricultural production and operation entities in carrying out unified prevention and control, green pest and disease control, and emergency prevention and control, with the area under specialized unified prevention and control reaching 1.35 billion mu-times.
Carry out large-scale and standardized construction of the breeding industry, and prevent environmental pollution caused by dead and diseased animals. In 2014, support was given to the construction of about 10,000 large-scale breeding farms (communities), and the proportion of large-scale pig breeding exceeded 40%. Centralized immunization was carried out in spring and autumn each year, and no major animal epidemics occurred. The central government allocated 754 million yuan in subsidies for the harmless treatment of dead pigs from large-scale breeding farms, and launched pilot work on a long-term mechanism for harmless treatment of dead pigs in 212 counties across 19 provinces nationwide. Support was given to the standardized renovation of more than 3.1 million mu of ponds, promoting the restoration of the breeding ecological environment.
Strengthen agricultural waste treatment and improve the level of resource utilization. In 2014, the central government invested 290 million yuan to implement plastic film recovery and utilization demonstrations in 73 demonstration counties across 8 provinces and municipalities (regions) including Xinjiang and Gansu, adding about 59,000 tons of residual film processing capacity and about 19.85 million mu of plastic film recovery area. Promote straw return to fields, promote straw-based livestock feeding technology, and explore new models of specialized storage, industrial processing, and circular development of planting and breeding. In 2014, the central government invested 2.5 billion yuan to build 390,000 rural household biogas units, 6,910 rural service outlets, and 9,917 breeding community and joint-household biogas projects.
Develop leisure agriculture and promote beautiful village construction. Up to now, the Ministry of Agriculture has created a total of 149 national leisure agriculture and rural tourism demonstration counties and 386 demonstration sites, recommended 140 of China's most beautiful leisure villages and 247 of China's beautiful pastoral landscapes, and recognized 1,100 pilot sites for “beautiful village” creation.
In response to some problems that still exist in the rural living environment, in the next step, the Ministry of Agriculture will, in accordance with central requirements, place the improvement of the rural living environment in a more important position, effectively transform agricultural development modes, steadily improve the level of harmless treatment and resource utilization of agricultural waste, continuously enhance the capacity for sustainable agricultural development, and build beautiful villages. First, promote the transformation of agricultural production modes. Vigorously promote eco-friendly agricultural technologies, do a good job in advancing soil testing and formulated fertilization on an institutional basis and in promoting formulated fertilizers through agricultural-enterprise cooperation; reasonably guide moderate-scale breeding, promote the scientific separation of breeding areas and living areas, strengthen standardized construction, support the development of specialized treatment of livestock and poultry manure, and increase efforts in the harmless treatment of dead and diseased animals; promote technologies for resource utilization and energy utilization of straw, and build productive public service facilities in a concentrated manner; expand the scale of beautiful village and leisure agriculture construction and improve construction quality. Second, strengthen scientific research tackling and standard formulation. Organize scientific research tackling on key technologies and equipment such as comprehensive straw utilization, agricultural non-point source pollution control, and biological pesticides; strengthen technology integration to form a batch of replicable and promotable agricultural ecological environment governance models; accelerate the establishment of industry standards and quality testing standard systems for biological fertilizers and plastic film-related products, and standardize production and application. Third, strengthen publicity and training. Carry out publicity activities in diverse forms and with rich content, so that the concepts of sustainable agricultural development and rural living environment improvement are deeply rooted in people's hearts; strengthen farmer training and demonstration guidance, and raise farmers' awareness of adopting ecological agricultural technologies.