The vigilance to ease the burden on farmers must never be relaxed at any time

The "Notice of the Ministry of Agriculture on the 2013 Inspection of Farmers' Burdens" reported the main problems found in the inspection of farmers' burdens in the 3 provinces of Heilongjiang, Anhui and Shandong by the 6 departments of the State Council joint conference on burden reduction. Publicly reporting these problems is meant to give play to the supervisory role of society, remind all localities to draw lessons from them, always keep taut the vigilance to ease the burden on farmers, and not to recklessly “reach out” to farmers.

Since the abolition of the agricultural tax, as the central government has continuously increased the intensity of coordinating urban and rural development, the burden on farmers has been kept at a relatively low level, and the farmer masses are happy and satisfied. However, because the institutional and mechanism-related factors causing the burden on farmers have not yet been completely eliminated, and in addition a small number of localities have weakened their awareness of burden reduction and reduced the intensity of supervision, some problems that cannot be ignored have appeared. In some localities, arbitrary fees are levied on farmers under all sorts of pretexts and in changed forms; in some localities, the arbitrary fees and arbitrary apportionments previously imposed on farmers have been shifted to new types of agricultural business entities and village-level organizations; in some localities, the development of village-level public welfare undertakings exceeds what farmers can bear and construction is carried out by borrowing; and in some localities, when implementing the policies that strengthen agriculture, benefit farmers and enrich farmers, fees are deducted against the will of farmers. This must be taken very seriously and resolutely corrected.

This year's No. 1 Central Document clearly proposed “resolutely investigate, handle and correct corruption problems in the agriculture-related field that harm the interests of the masses and acts that increase the burden on farmers”. Easing the burden on farmers is a basic policy of the Party in rural areas, and this high-tension line must not be touched. We must fully recognize the long-term and arduous nature of the work of burden reduction, and must never become mentally lax or slack in work just because farmers' incomes have increased and the level of farmers' burdens has declined. We must adhere to the work system under which the main leaders of local Party committees and governments personally take charge and bear overall responsibility, implement the “one-vote veto” system for easing the burden on farmers, and improve the special governance departmental responsibility system of “whoever is in charge is responsible”. We must strictly implement all policies for easing the burden on farmers, further strengthen routine supervision and management work, adopt measures such as special governance, comprehensive governance and burden inspections to solve the prominent problems reflected by farmers, further increase inspections and the handling of violations of rules and discipline, continue to maintain the high-pressure posture of easing the burden on farmers, and resolutely prevent the burden on farmers from rebounding.