Analysis on the Transformation Direction of Agricultural Policy

The weakness of agriculture is one of the main reasons why many people emphasize that agriculture must be protected. However, agricultural protection can only resolve the negative impact of agricultural weakness, but can not eliminate agricultural weakness. From the perspective of international experience, only by developing modern agriculture can agriculture become an industry that can compete equally with other industries. Therefore, the development of modern agriculture is a permanent solution to eliminate agricultural weakness, while agricultural protection is only a temporary solution to resolve the negative impact of agricultural weakness.

Since 2002, the total amount of subsidies invested by the central and local governments in agriculture has become larger and larger, but the weakness of agriculture has not been eliminated, the competitiveness of agriculture has not increased, and farmers' satisfaction with the prices of agricultural products and their enthusiasm for agricultural production have not improved. In the face of such a situation, is it to spend more and more financial funds to protect an agriculture that has always been unable to compete with other industries, or to make great efforts to build an agriculture that can compete with other industries? The answer is self-evident. Modern agriculture cannot be formed in an environment that is divorced from market competition and there is no market risk to guard against, so agricultural policy must be transformed in order to build modern agriculture.

Change the policy of replacing farmers to evade risks into policies that encourage farmers to pursue benefits.

The essence of the policy of the household contract responsibility system implemented at the beginning of the reform is to encourage farmers to improve production efficiency through empowerment, and the essence of the policy is to resolve the market risks of farmers by adopting measures such as minimum grain purchase price and temporary purchase and storage. To ensure that their income does not decline. It should be affirmed that these policies play a positive role in stabilizing agricultural production and protecting the interests of farmers, but their negative effects such as distorting prices and increasing inventory should not be ignored. Among them, price distortion will reduce the efficiency of agricultural resource allocation, and the increase of inventory will destroy the stability of production. In other words, these risk-averse policies for farmers are effective in the short term, and will become more and more difficult to sustain because of the gradual increase of the accumulated financial burden in the long run.

As the most populous country in the world, food safety is a vital strategic issue and should not be taken lightly at any time. The key measure to ensure food safety is to eliminate the natural risk and market risk of agriculture. In terms of resolving the natural and market risks of agriculture, the responsibility of the government is to build an agricultural infrastructure system with the nature of public goods, including the research and development and extension system of agricultural technology. agrometeorological information and agricultural product market information collection, analysis and release system, as well as roads, water conservancy and other agricultural infrastructure systems, so that the broad masses of farmers have timely access to the necessary technology, information and infrastructure. The responsibility of the main body of agricultural management is to optimize the allocation of resources and give full play to the comparative advantages of resources and market competitive advantages of their regions. Only when the government does well what should be done by the government and does not assume the responsibility of farmers, and farmers do what should be done by farmers do not assume the responsibility of the government, can we give full play to the functions of an effective government, an efficient market and a pursuing peasant household.

Gradually change the yellow box policy into the green box policy.

Although the agricultural subsidy in our country produces the utility of income subsidy, we still define it as agricultural production subsidy. The main reason for emphasizing this point is the worry that farmers will not grow grain.

If farmers' non-agricultural income continues to increase, but the farmland is not transferred and there are no restrictions on the use of farmland, it is indeed possible that more and more land will not be cultivated. However, this is not the case in our country. In recent years, on the one hand, the number of farmers has gradually decreased with the promotion of urbanization and industrialization, on the other hand, the scale of agricultural micro-management has gradually increased with the transfer of agricultural land. The larger the scale of agricultural micro-operation is, the more suitable it is to grow land-intensive crops. Under the effect of this endogenous crop selection mechanism, the decline in food production is certainly limited and short-term.

Agricultural production subsidies will reduce the efficiency of resource allocation internally and will be restricted by WTO rules externally. In terms of preventing the distortion of the price signals of agricultural products and evading the restrictions of the WTO rules on the yellow box policy, the basic approach of all countries is to decouple agricultural support from agricultural production, and gradually turn agricultural subsidies belonging to the yellow box policy into agricultural support belonging to the green box policy. In the United States, for example, after the enactment of the Agriculture Act in 2014, its yellow box subsidies fell to a very low level. China should also gradually adjust the agricultural subsidies that belong to the yellow box policy to the agricultural support of the green box policy.

In recent years, the cost of agricultural production in China has risen rapidly. At present, the price of domestic agricultural products is higher than the CIF customs value of imported agricultural products within the quota. For example, the import CIF customs value of beef and mutton and pork is less than 26000 yuan and 12000 yuan per ton respectively, less than half of the price of beef and mutton and pork in the domestic retail market. In this case, raising the price of domestic agricultural products not only increases the income of farmers, but also increases the pressure on the import of foreign agricultural products. China, as a populous country with relatively few agricultural resources per capita, it is necessary to use foreign agricultural resources and international agricultural products market to regulate the supply of domestic agricultural products and reduce the pressure on domestic agricultural resources and environment. However, a large number of imports of agricultural products will affect the employment and income of farmers in our country.

Change the property right policy of material form into the property right policy of value form.

In reality, the definition of property rights of grassland, forest and wetland tends to copy agricultural practices. However, grasslands, forests and wetlands are very different from cultivated land, and it is not appropriate to simply imitate agricultural practices. The following is an example of grassland animal husbandry.

1. The core problem of grassland animal husbandry is to coordinate the relationship between stable herd size and fluctuating grassland yield, as well as the difference of seasons suitable for grazing in each grassland.

Historically, herdsmen have used nomadism to coordinate the relationship between unstable grassland yield and stable herd size. In reality, nomadism is no longer the only measure to coordinate this relationship, and new measures include supplementary feeding, building greenhouses, picking up winter lambs and fattening livestock in autumn. From the point of view of the trend, because the definition of grassland property rights to households is beneficial to enhance the incentive of herdsmen, realize the internalization of externalities, stop the infringement of property rights and form a clear expected income, with the expansion of the average management scale of herdsmen, the scope of application of specific grassland and specific pastoral households by means of property rights division and fencing will be gradually expanded. However, at present, this practice is not universal.

The community members of the grassland have a common code of conduct and a tradition of mutual trust and mutual help. They have a close relationship, it is easy to supervise and stop free riders, and the coordination cost of collective action is low, which is an important reason for the adoption of co-managed property rights arrangements in community grasslands. Community grassland co-management is the basis for stakeholders to coordinate interests, mitigate conflicts and win-win cooperation, a way to combine the stability and flexibility of grassland use, and a measure to improve the integrity of grassland ecosystem. This is an important reason why community grassland co-management has a long history.