Large grain growers must return subsidies to smallholders, leaving agricultural support policies stranded in confusion
In order to encourage the development of new types of agricultural business entities, in recent years the state and local governments have begun to provide them with fiscal subsidies. In Chongqing, subsidy standards are divided into two tiers according to operating scale: 160 yuan and 230 yuan per mu. But in grassroots practice, many smallholders have become “field bosses,” and large grain growers have to “return” part of the subsidy money to them. In some districts and counties, large growers actually receive about 90 yuan per mu in subsidies, and in a few places even less than 10 yuan.
Similar phenomena reflect confusion over the “last kilometer” in implementing new agricultural support policies, namely that some government measures to strengthen agriculture and benefit farmers were originally strongly targeted, but their effects are greatly reduced in the face of complex internal rural interest relationships and farmland rights relationships. As the state further strengthens support for new agricultural entities, how to make agricultural support policies more relevant, targeted, and effective is an important issue facing policymakers.
If subsidies are not returned, the land will be taken back
To stabilize grain production and reduce the adverse effects of rising costs on large growers, Chongqing stipulates that large growers with a grain-growing area of 50 mu to 100 mu can receive a subsidy of 160 yuan per mu; those with an area of more than 100 mu receive a subsidy of 230 yuan per mu. However, this agricultural support policy encountered confusion during implementation.
⟦NL> Reporters recently found during interviews in Chongqing's Liangping, Dianjiang, Zhongxian and other places that most large grain growers have to face demands from smallholders to “share the subsidy profits.” Farmers who transferred out land, although they no longer grow grain, still demand to share in the large growers' subsidy funds by the same standard as other grain farmers' access to agricultural input subsidies, direct grain subsidies, and so on.
“The effect of implementing new agricultural support policies depends both on the intensity and scope of government funding and on the influence of interest relationships among farmers and farmland rights relationships. For example, in land circulation, although land use and management rights are transferred to large growers, smallholders still retain land contract rights. Against the current broader backdrop of weak contractual enforcement in rural areas, if large growers cannot satisfy the smallholders' interest demands, the smallholders are very likely to take the land back.” said Liu Baofan, deputy director of the Dianjiang County Agriculture Committee. The government requires that “whoever grows grain gets the subsidy,” but this is very difficult to implement at the grassroots level. In the process of land circulation, there is in fact an interest game between large growers who take in land and smallholders. For large growers to rent land, they usually must return part of the subsidy funds as a precondition.
In Lingyun Village, Xinmin Town, Dianjiang County, large grain grower Pan Zhicai transferred 103 mu of land last year. At the standard of 230 yuan per mu, he could receive more than 23,000 yuan in subsidies. “What I can actually get in hand is only 16,000 yuan; the rest of the money all has to be ‘returned’ to the farming households that transferred land to me.” Pan Zhicai said that although these farmers no longer farm the land themselves, they still demand to enjoy subsidies in the same way. If they are not given money, they will not transfer the land.
During visits to more than 30 large grain growers in Chongqing's agricultural areas, reporters found that nearly 70 percent of large growers had transferred land areas of 50 mu to 100 mu. After government subsidies are divided with smallholders, the subsidy money large growers actually receive is generally only four thousand to five thousand yuan, and in some places there is even the situation that “smallholders take the bulk of the subsidy, while large growers have almost nothing left.”
Large grain growers in various places report that many farmers now regard subsidy funds as a universal government welfare benefit rather than as special funds through which the state encourages grain production, and feel that they should have a share of the subsidy money. In addition, land circulation in some places is not standardized: some arrangements are oral agreements, and some have no formal contract signed. Farmers who transfer out land are relatively dominant, and if subsidies are not returned, they will take the land back.