China Net Finance, December 22 (Reporter Li Chunhui) ** The Rural Work Conference was held in Beijing from the 19th to the 20th. The meeting proposed to "explore the establishment of an inter-provincial horizontal interest compensation mechanism for grain production and marketing areas", which attracted attention.
It turns out that we are more vertical, top-down subsidies to large grain-producing counties, and there has not been horizontal benefit compensation between provinces. Zhong Yu, director of the Industrial Economics Research Office of the Institute of Agricultural Economics of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told China Net Finance.
In 2003, in order to improve the comprehensive agricultural production capacity and ensure national food security, China designated 13 provincial-level units as the main grain producing areas, and undertook the important task of ensuring national grain production and security. In recent years, due to various reasons, China's grain production has become more and more concentrated in the main producing areas, and in 2022, the grain output of the 13 main producing areas has accounted for more than 78% of the national output.
However, due to the nature of grain as a quasi-public good and the low profit margin of the industry, in order to mobilize the production enthusiasm of large grain growers, local governments often have to give a large amount of financial subsidies, resulting in the main grain-producing areas facing the dilemma of "large grain-producing counties, economically weak counties, and financially poor counties".
Shouldering the heavy responsibility of national food security, a large amount of manpower and material resources in the main producing areas are used to develop grain production, resulting in insufficient resources for the development of industry and service industries, and slow economic growthAt the same time, the main sales areas in the developed coastal areas have experienced faster and faster economic growth through the development of industry, service industry, and high-tech industries, which has gradually widened the gap between the two. Zhong Yu said.
In this context, there is a view that the main producing areas with relatively backward economic development give the grain they produce to the relatively developed main sales areas, which is actually accompanied by grain subsidies and the transfer of interests, and there is a suspicion that the "poor areas" subsidize the "rich areas". In line with the principle of "who benefits and who compensates", the main sales area should compensate the interests of the main production area.
Zhong Yu said that the establishment of an inter-provincial horizontal interest compensation mechanism in the production and marketing area will help improve the financial capacity of the main production area, so as to strengthen the construction of other aspects of its economy and society, and gradually narrow the gap with the main sales area.
He also pointed out that benefit compensation is not limited to the form of funds, but can also include cooperation and even assistance in science and technology, talents, medical care, education and other aspects between production and marketing areas, so as to promote the high-quality development of all aspects of economy and society while mobilizing the enthusiasm of the main producing areas for grain planting.
However, at present, the horizontal benefit compensation between the provinces of production and marketing areas is still in the exploratory stage, and the main operational difficulty lies in the lack of statistical data on grain flow. "Now we are a unified national market, and commercial grain is circulating throughout the country, and it is difficult to count which sales areas have been sent grain from each major producing area and how much has been left in each sales area. If Heilongjiang grain only flows to Guangdong, it is very easy for these two provinces to compensate for their interests on a 'one-to-one' basis, but this is not the case in reality. ”
In the absence of detailed data on grain flow, Zhong Yu suggested that the grain self-sufficiency rate of each main sales area can be started, and the non-self-sufficient part can be calculated through a certain conversion standard to calculate the compensation amount, and hand it over to **, which will form a "capital pool" and then allocate it to each main producing area.
Through the compensation of inter-provincial horizontal interests in production and marketing areas, the awareness of food security responsibility of the whole society can be strengthened. Zhong Yu said.
In addition, in terms of grain production, the ** Rural Work Conference proposed to "ensure that food production is maintained at 1 in 2024."more than 3 trillion catties". By 2023, China's grain output has been stable at 1 for 9 consecutive yearsmore than 3 trillion catties". Last year's ** Rural Work Conference proposed to "implement a new round of 100 billion catties of grain production capacity improvement action", and the output target for 2024 does not clearly reflect the "increase production" orientation.
In this regard, Zhong Yu said that the "new round of 100 billion catties of grain production capacity improvement action" is not a short-term project. "The last round of 100 billion catties of grain production capacity improvement action also took more than 10 years to complete. It's a cross-cycle job. ”
According to his understanding, since last year's "new round of 100 billion catties of grain production capacity improvement action" was proposed, ** and local governments have been intensively carrying out discussions and demonstrations, and have begun to formulate relevant plans. "Different regions combine their own conditions to tap the space for capacity improvement, whether in terms of area or yield, etc., all of which need to go through multiple rounds of argumentation and cannot be rushed. ”
Rural revitalization" is an important topic of the first rural work conference in previous years, and this year's meeting proposed to "coordinate new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization". New urbanization is an urbanization process, and rural revitalization has a certain degree of anti-urbanization characteristics, and there will inevitably be a "competition" for people between the two
Zhong Yu said that the effect of new urbanization and rural revitalization is not judged from the "quantity" of population flow. The overall development of the two is mainly to smooth the two-way flow of talents, resources and other elements, and to allow talents to devote themselves to the fields that can shine the most and create greater value under the optimal allocation of market-oriented resources. In the long run, the "gap" in the dual structure of urban and rural areas will become more and more blurred, and the gap will become smaller and smaller.