Featured industry development receives fiscal discount interest support
“In the first half of this year, I lacked working capital and did not have enough money to buy feed. Every day when I opened my eyes, what worried me was the feed money for the more than 80 sheep in the pen.” Just when Yan Wude, a sheep farmer in Liangzhou District, Wuwei City, Gansu Province, was most anxious, he was lucky enough to obtain a 50,000 yuan “cattle, sheep and vegetable industry loan” from the Liangzhou District Rural Credit Cooperative. “With this money, I can stand firm in raising sheep, and I can raise more sheep.”
Like Yan Wude, farmer Zhang Guokai of Gaoba Town, who already owns 1 solar greenhouse, also wanted to expand his scale and build another solar greenhouse because growing facility vegetables is highly profitable, but he struggled because he could not scrape together the 80,000 yuan needed to build the greenhouse. When the reporter met him, he had already used a 50,000 yuan “cattle, sheep and vegetable industry loan” to build a solar greenhouse covering 2 mu, and estimated that it could increase his income by about 40,000 yuan a year.
The “cattle, sheep and vegetable industry loan” mentioned by Zhang Guokai and others is the “Gansu Province discount interest loan for the development of the herbivorous livestock industry and facility vegetable industry” jointly launched at the end of May 2013 by 6 departments including the Gansu Provincial Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and the Provincial Department of Finance. It is affectionately called the “dual-industry loan” by the broad masses of cadres and farmers.
“No matter how beautiful farmers’ vision of becoming rich through industry is, it still needs the support of financial funds.” said Han Linguang, deputy director of the Gansu Provincial Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. The herbivorous livestock industry and the facility vegetable industry are two distinctive advantageous industries that Gansu Province has focused on promoting according to provincial conditions. As a major western province for beef and mutton production and a commercial vegetable production base for “western vegetables transported east” and “northern vegetables transported south,” Gansu’s move aims to use limited fiscal agriculture-related funds to concentrate efforts on solving farmers’ financing difficulties in developing industries, thereby leveraging financial credit funds into the agriculture, rural areas and farmers sector, so as to achieve industrial development and increase farmers’ income. After one year of implementation, its role in promoting the industry has been obviously effective, and it has been welcomed by the broad masses of farmers and herders, whose enthusiasm for loans has run high. By the end of this year, Gansu provincial finance had cumulatively integrated 870 million yuan in funds for loan discount interest. Nearly 120,000 farmer households with development intentions had obtained loans, and a cumulative total of 15.8 billion yuan in loans had been issued, powerfully promoting the development of the two industries. The “dual-industry loan” is becoming a booster for farmers and herders to achieve prosperity through industry.
Fiscal funds gather strength, attracting funds to support industrial development
Qingting Village, Gaoba Town, Liangzhou District, Wuwei City, is a traditional vegetable-growing village. Ma Yuan, secretary of the Qingting Village Party branch, told the reporter that in 1994, Qingting Village began developing facility vegetable cultivation such as solar greenhouses. Until 2007, the village had only more than 200 solar greenhouses and plastic sheds in total, a very small total. The village wanted to expand the scale of facility vegetables and develop facility breeding, but could not come up with the money. In recent years, by relying on the province’s integration of fiscal funds and a series of discount interest loans benefiting and supporting agriculture, the scale of facility vegetables in Qingting Village developed rapidly. It not only built 671 solar greenhouses, but also established a vegetable production and marketing professional cooperative and registered the “Qingting brand” vegetable trademark.
“After 20 years of development, the village’s industrial development is also facing some problems that urgently need to be solved.” Ma Yuan said that with the continuous expansion and rapid development of the industrial scale, the requirements for the degree of mechanization of facility vegetables, the standards of planting technology and the selection and breeding of varieties are becoming higher and higher. Therefore, some solar greenhouses and plastic sheds in the village are facing renewal problems and urgently need capital investment. In addition, some villagers also lack working capital to develop large-scale facility breeding.
Ma Yuan said that based on the reality of industrial development, the credit demand of Qingting Village villagers is very strong. Since the beginning of this year, 115 households in the village have obtained 13.95 million yuan in “dual-industry loans,” and the problems of renewing old facility vegetable greenhouses and lacking working capital for industrial development have been readily solved.
⟦NL> Ma Zaixing, director of the Finance and Asset Management Division of the Gansu Provincial Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, introduced that according to regulations, for “dual-industry funds” obtained by farmer households and farmers’ professional cooperatives engaged in cattle and sheep breeding and facility vegetable production in major cattle and sheep industry counties and main vegetable production areas as well as other areas, the annual interest rate increase may not exceed 20% of the national benchmark interest rate published by the People’s Bank of China. Loan discount interest is jointly borne by provincial and county (district) finance and farmer households, with payment first and discount later. Among this, the provincial level bears 4%, and the rest is determined by counties and districts themselves for their respective sharing proportions. The loan amount for farmer households shall not exceed 300,000 yuan, and for cooperatives (breeding communities) shall not exceed 3 million yuan. The discount interest period shall in principle be implemented as 2 years for the herbivorous livestock industry and 1 year for facility vegetables, and may be appropriately extended according to actual conditions, with a maximum of no more than 3 years.
Dang Jisheng, chairman of the labor union of the Liangzhou District Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau who is responsible for the “dual-industry loan,” told the reporter that in Liangzhou District, in addition to provincial fiscal discount interest, the municipal finance bears 0.38% of the annual loan interest rate, and the district level bears 2%, so individual farmer households only need to bear 1%.
“This loan not only has low interest, but also the fiscal discount interest accounts for the vast majority. It is a loan that benefits and favors farmers.” Zhang Guoliang, a breeding farmer in Qingting Village, said that more importantly, the “dual-industry loan” has brought funds to farmers for industrial development, “solving difficulties and quenching thirst.”