Reflections on the root causes of problems in cultivated land protection

The protection of land, especially arable land, is related to the long-term stability of the country and the survival of the nation; promoting the prosperity of farmers is related to the foundation of being in power and the rejuvenation of the nation. With the deepening of the reform, the problems affecting the protection of cultivated land, especially the protection of basic farmland and the wealth of farmers continue to emerge.

The CPC Central Committee has made overall arrangements for ensuring food security and promoting farmers to get rich as soon as possible as the political task and national strategy of the whole party, and has put forward requirements and objectives, formulated measures, and defined tasks. This requires us to seek truth from facts, explore and innovate, and continue to promote the implementation of the strictest cultivated land protection system.

At present, it is difficult to protect cultivated land, and the difficulty lies in the poor mechanism.

It is difficult for farmers to get rich only by growing grain, and it has become an important factor in the "non-grain" of cultivated land. Grain production and farmers' income increase come from cultivated land, especially basic farmland, while the current laws and policies have some mutual constraints, which have an impact on grain production and farmers' getting rich. On the one hand, only by ensuring a certain quantity and quality of basic farmland can we ensure that the basic demand for food can be met. For this reason, the law has the strictest provisions on the protection of basic farmland. On the other hand, the only resources that farmers can use are labor and contracted land. if they want to get rich, it is directly feasible to make a fuss on the contracted land. Because the benefit of growing food is much lower than that of non-grain cash crops, farmers often get rich by planting large amounts of non-grain crops on contracted land or developing aquaculture. If this practice is left unchecked, there is no guarantee of food security, and if it is restricted in accordance with the law, it will directly affect farmers' getting rich.

There are a large number of situations in which random adjustment of planning destroys the pattern of farming and conservation. The land for economic and social development and the legal amount of cultivated land are rigid demand. On the one hand, economic and social development, especially the new type of industrialization and urbanization, will inevitably occupy a certain amount of cultivated land or even basic farmland; on the other hand, in order to ensure a certain amount of cultivated land and ensure the quality of cultivated land, the law stipulates a minimum delineation ratio of 80% of basic farmland, requires strict implementation of the system of balance between occupation and compensation, and formulates supporting policies. However, the authority for the adjustment of urban construction planning is at least vested in the people's governments of counties and cities, and regulation "on demand" has become a "means" for localities to occupy cultivated land-- except for the basic farmland occupied by key state construction projects approved by the State Council, local construction and farmers' construction houses occupy basic farmland, without exception, they all evade examination and approval through regulation. This has brought a result: "should be the basic farmland is not the basic farmland" phenomenon is very common. If such "development" continues, more and more arable land will be occupied, and the quality of basic farmland is getting lower and lower, and even "going up the mountain and going to the sea", grain production will certainly be affected.

The overlapping management of departmental laws leads to a "discount" in the effect of farming and insurance. In the current legal system of our country, many special laws are related to land management, such as Forest Law, grassland Law and soil and Water Conservation Law respectively stipulate the protection and utilization of forest land, grassland, wetland and so on. From the perspective of a single law, there is no conflict between the enforcement of these laws and land management and use, but the contradiction appears when they are implemented together with the Land Management Law. The most prominent thing is that when the land area remains unchanged, the sum of the protected areas determined by various special laws will greatly exceed the land area, and many of the overlapping parts are arable land or even basic farmland. In addition, under the current system and mechanism, in order to meet the needs of assessment and construction, many places adopt selective law enforcement that is beneficial to themselves, resulting in law enforcers going their own way, affecting the overall situation and the overall situation, and many legal data are false, affecting decision-making. When it falls on arable land, the amount of it is greatly reduced.

The acceleration of urbanization and the abandonment of cultivated land make the situation of protecting cultivated land more serious. Accelerating urbanization is an important strategy of the party and the state. Generally speaking, with the advance of urbanization, the land occupied by urbanization construction, including arable land, will become more and more, and the land occupied by farmers in building houses, including arable land, will become less and less, showing a trend of "one increase and one decrease". The actual situation is that in the process of urbanization, the cultivated land occupied by construction land and farmers' homestead construction shows a double growth trend, and farmers are unwilling and dare not give up their roots in rural areas. What is more serious is that due to the low food prices and relatively abundant food supply, farmers living in cities have temporarily realized the citizenization of housing. They have no enthusiasm for growing grain and are unwilling to give up contracted land, which makes the phenomenon of abandonment increasingly prominent.

The subsidy policy of farming insurance is difficult to correspond to the actual needs of farmers, and the effect of cultivated land protection is poor. The state has directly issued incentives and incentive policies to mobilize farmers' enthusiasm for growing grain and the consciousness of protecting arable land. In this regard, the central financial input is not only a large amount of subsidies, but also a lot of items. However, due to regional differences, demand differences, current situation differences, etc., the effect of the implementation of the central policy in various places is not ideal: first, according to the subsidy of contracted land area, it does not mobilize the enthusiasm of growing grain, "the wound is on the head, the plaster is affixed to the foot." Second, direct subsidies to households, although it can ensure that the funds fall into the hands of farmers, but for grain farmers, the existing subsidies are a drop in the bucket, but those who do not grow grain look down on this subsidy, which is wasted; third, subsidies are scattered and do not match the needs of farmers. With such subsidies, the amount of subsidies related to agriculture is very large, but the status quo of cultivated land protection is still the same.

The way out lies in perfecting the top-level design and perfecting the system.

It is not difficult to see that the root of these problems is that the design of the top-level system is not reasonable. To truly achieve the goal of cultivated land protection and ensure food security, the fundamental way out lies in reform. The 18th CPC National Congress and the third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee have made comprehensive designs and arrangements for the reform. We should seize the opportunity to promote the reform of land-related laws and systems, and build an effective and operational cultivated land protection system.

First of all, it is the responsibility of "politicians" to carry out the responsibility. The leading cadres of the party, especially the principal responsible persons of the party, must become "politicians," otherwise, the decision-making arrangements of the central authorities and the unified orders of the state will fail because of "separatism" and "special". The responsibility for the protection of cultivated land must fall on the party committee and its principal responsible persons. Party committees at all levels, especially party committees at and above the county level and their principal responsible persons, should not only fully understand the current situation and goals, but also have the courage to be responsible and seek reality. fundamentally solve the erroneous thinking of emphasizing development over protection, immediate over long-term, and local over the overall situation. To achieve this, party leaders at all levels should have strategic vision and overall thinking, which is not only the requirement of the Central Committee, but also a necessary quality as a "politician."

Secondly, we should pay close attention to the revision of the law and establish the status of "mother law". Governing the country according to law is the strategy, the guarantee and the foundation. The law must be feasible, effective, authoritative and integrated. In the aspect of land management, we should take the revision of the Land Management Law as the core and amend the land-related laws at the same time, that is, other special land-related laws are based on the Land Management Law and thoroughly revise those that are inconsistent with the Land Management Law. to ensure that the Land Management Law becomes the "parent law" of land management, and other land-related laws are "sub-laws". The administrative department of land shall be responsible for functional adjustment, examination and approval of use, supervision and assessment, and be responsible to the people's government at the same level and the department of land and resources at the next higher level.

Third, the powers and responsibilities are consistent, and the provincial government is the "focus". Give full play to the initiative of the people's governments at the provincial level and unify their powers and responsibilities. The protection of cultivated land, especially the protection of basic farmland, is no longer delineated in proportion, but the total area of protection is assigned by the central government according to the province and implemented by the provincial government to the city and county. The central government delegated the power of examination and approval and the right of use of indicators, and the provincial government withdrew the right of planning adjustment, matched the examination and approval of planning adjustment with the examination and approval of construction land, expanded the power of examination and approval of land used by provincial governments, and implemented the responsibility of provincial governments to protect cultivated land. The central government is only responsible for the assessment and cashes the rewards and punishments according to the assessment results. At the same time, the central government should constantly improve the policies needed by administrative and economic means to regulate and control land and protect cultivated land.