What are the inducing factors of agriculture-related corruption?

Important findings:

75.2% of respondents said that corruption related to agriculture was widespread in their areas;44.2% of respondents said that corruption related to agriculture occurred more on cadres at the township level.

At present, the problem of agriculture-related corruption appears more in the three fields of "new rural construction"(57.0%),"rural poverty alleviation and development"(55.1%) and "financial support for agriculture"(45.2%).

"Embezzlement and misappropriation of compensation for land requisition"(62.6%),"sale and misappropriation of collective assets"(55.1%),"taking and withholding funds for benefiting farmers"(53.4%) are the main means adopted by cadres involved in agriculture corruption.

When farmers 'vital interests were infringed by cadres' corruption, they held three kinds of mentality: "officials protect each other, it is useless to report"(36.5%),"there is no way to report, only to swallow it"(25.9%),"dare not report, afraid of retaliation"(24.1%).

For the harm of agriculture-related corruption, it is more prominent in three aspects: "deteriorating political ecology"(3.44 points),"hindering the construction of new countryside"(3.35 points) and "causing contradictions between cadres and masses"(3.28 points).

Survey time: October 27-November 9, 2015

Survey method: Internet release + WeChat public platform push electronic questionnaire

Sample composition: A total of 3084 valid samples were recovered. In the regions where the respondents lived, municipalities directly under the central government accounted for 10.8%, provincial capitals accounted for 15.6%, prefecture-level cities accounted for 22.2%, counties or county-level cities accounted for 22.1%, and towns and villages accounted for 29.3%.

To build a well-off society in an all-round way, the core, key points and difficulties are all in the vast rural areas. A well-off society in an all-round way in rural areas is also the fundamental foundation and prerequisite for China's well-off society in an all-round way. This is not only because there has been a large development gap between urban and rural areas for a long time under the restriction of urban-rural dual structure, but also because agriculture, as the primary industry, has always been in a basic position in China's national economy for a traditional agricultural and agricultural population country like China. Therefore, in recent years, the central government has issued a series of policies to support agriculture and benefit agriculture, increase investment in rural areas and accelerate the pace of building a well-off society in rural areas in an all-round way.

However, while the state attaches great importance to solving the "three rural" problems,"agriculture-related corruption" has been exposed on the Internet from time to time, from land acquisition and demolition, disaster relief, to dilapidated housing reconstruction, rural poverty alleviation, etc. Relevant reports show that agriculture-related corruption may have penetrated into many areas related to farmers 'vital interests.

In reality, why does agriculture-related corruption occur? To what extent is it, and what negative impact has it caused on farmers and local economy and society? How to effectively control agriculture-related corruption... In order to clarify these, the People's Forum Questionnaire Center launched a questionnaire survey around a series of issues related to agriculture-related corruption. The main findings are presented below.

I. More than 70% of respondents believe that corruption related to agriculture is widespread, and more occurs on cadres at the township level.

To what extent is agriculture-related corruption? We asked respondents to answer the following question: "According to your observation and understanding, is there widespread corruption related to agriculture in your area?" The survey showed that 40.5% of respondents chose "very common" for this question, and 34.7% chose "relatively common". In contrast, respondents who chose "fair,""less common" and "not common" accounted for only 18.1%, 5.2% and 1.5% of the total number of respondents.

When we further asked the interviewees "which level of cadres does agriculture-related corruption occur more often", first, 44.2% of the interviewees chose "township level", which ranked first among all options; second, those who chose "district level" and "village level" were roughly equal in number and proportion, with 28.0% and 27.8% of the interviewees choosing the two options respectively.

On the one hand, as the administrative organization established by the state administrative system at the grass-roots level in the countryside, to some extent, the township government is the basis for the operation of the whole state administrative system, and many national policies and working principles must be implemented at the township level. Especially for agricultural policies and institutions, the township level is often the actual implementing body. On the other hand, the occurrence of corruption related to agriculture in township cadres means that some cadres within the township administrative system do not exercise their power correctly and normatively. From these points alone, there are enough reasons to infer that the violation of discipline and regulations by grass-roots cadres caused by alienation or failure of power will have very serious consequences for the local rural economy and society.

II. New rural construction, rural poverty alleviation and development, and financial support for agriculture are the three areas where the problem of agriculture-related corruption is more prominent.

After the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way, the central government continued to strengthen its support for rural areas and issued a series of policies to support agriculture and benefit farmers, from developing agricultural productivity to building a new socialist countryside, from promoting new urbanization to poverty alleviation and development in rural areas. On the one hand, it injected new vitality and impetus into the development of rural economy and society, and on the other hand, it also enabled grass-roots cadres to have more control over resources and elements. In turn, the space for grass-roots cadres to rent and set up rents has become larger than before.

We set 13 agriculture-related fields or links such as "new rural construction","agricultural industrialization","rural poverty alleviation and development","financial support for agriculture","new urbanization" and "improvement of agricultural facilities" as independent options, and asked respondents which fields or links were more prominent in the problem of agriculture-related corruption. The survey shows that "new rural construction"(57.0%),"rural poverty alleviation and development"(55.1%),"financial support for agriculture"(45.2%), ranked in the top three among all options. At the same time, 37.1%, 34.1% and 30.8% of respondents chose "new urbanization","agricultural industrialization" and "improvement of agricultural facilities" respectively. See Figure 3 for other option selection ratios.

The problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the process of comprehensively deepening reform are prominently manifested in the following three aspects: the relatively backward way of production and life in rural areas, the relatively low level of agricultural industrialization and modernization, and the serious problem of rural poverty. With the approaching of the goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way, these three aspects have increasingly become the key constraints of building a well-off society in rural areas. In recent years, the construction of a new socialist countryside, rural poverty alleviation and development, and financial support for agriculture, as an important starting point to accelerate the development of rural economy and society, have been expected by all walks of life to solve the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers in the new period. Under such a realistic background, the occurrence of agriculture-related corruption in these three fields is not only not conducive to the transformation and development of rural economy and society, but also greatly affects the process of building a well-off society in rural areas in an all-round way. and even the whole country to build a well-off society in an all-round way.