Ministry of Ecology and Environment: Green environment must be protected, the Green Environment Payment Program for Land is implemented

One year into the implementation of the Green Environment Payment Program for Land, farmers are encouraged to convert their original rice paddies to import-substitution crops, key export crops, priority development crops, etc., in order to reduce rice cultivation area. What do frontline personnel think? 

        The Green Environment Payment Program for Land is about to reach one year of implementation. Among its measures, the direct land payment encourages farmers to sell their rice on the market, changing the past habit of delivering public grain with an emphasis on weight rather than quality. Grain merchants point out that the direct land payment does indeed give farmers one more option, but the premise is that the overall policy is operated properly. If total production is not well controlled and there is too much rice on the market, farmers may not necessarily enjoy the benefits. The Agriculture and Food Agency also explained that next year's program, in addition to raising the premium for high-quality rice and adjusting the content of subsidized crops, will add a pilot measure for converting first-crop rice to dryland crops in water resource competition areas, in the hope of achieving water savings and adjusting the rice industry structure.

       The Green Environment Payment Program for Land adopts conditional stacked subsidies. As long as farmers meet more measures, they can receive more subsidies. The content includes encouraging farmers to produce high-quality rice and sell it on the market to receive subsidies directly, without necessarily delivering public grain; encouraging rice paddies to be converted to competitive crops, reducing rice cultivation area and providing domestically produced miscellaneous grains; in addition, it also encourages agricultural land use, where planting green manure, landscape crops, plowing, and water storage can all receive subsidies. Compared with the domestic crop planting area situation in 106, the Agriculture and Food Agency statistics show that in 107 the rice planting area decreased by 2,064 hectares, while conversion (contract farming) increased by 4,386 hectares, showing that part of the rice paddies are growing competitive crops, and that new farmers have also joined miscellaneous grain planting. Lin Chuan-chi, section chief of the Grain Industry Section of the Agriculture and Food Agency, pointed out that compared with the average rice production situation from 101 to 105, the first-crop rice in 107 increased by 15% per hectare in unit yield, total production increased by 22% (about 239,000 metric tons of rice), and farmers' income increased by 10%.

        The program also selected priority promotion crops to encourage rice paddy conversion, hoping farmers can convert their original rice paddies to import-substitution crops, key export crops, priority development crops, etc., in order to reduce rice cultivation area. Lin Chuan-chi stated that the Agriculture and Food Agency has considered whether conversion to contract farming would cause production imbalance in other crops, or whether there would be a lack of willingness to convert. Therefore, when setting priority development crop items, the first consideration is crops with a relatively large domestic planting area, such as sweet potato, scallion, and pumpkin, to increase farmers' willingness to convert, but not to the extent of affecting crop production and marketing imbalance.

        Yang Ming-hsien, a professor in the Department of International Business at Feng Chia University, also stated that the spirit of the Green Environment Payment Program for Land is to introduce concepts such as environmental, green, and ecological benefits. It should give more consideration to multifunctional environmental benefits and should help farmers understand the concept, rather than subsidizing products. Lin Chuan-chi stated that next year's program will make some adjustments. For example, the high-quality rice premium originally encouraged those participating in contract farming, obtaining production and marketing traceability, organic or friendly farming verification, with an additional payment of 1,500 yuan; next year it will be raised to 3,000 yuan. The conversion (contract farming) reward standards this year newly added mung bean, dwarf kidney bean, and seed vegetables, while priority development crops have also adjusted their items; for example, pineapple has a production and marketing imbalance situation and has been removed from the applicable items.