Investigation on cultivated land
Our research team
Cultivated land is the lifeblood of food production, and the red line of cultivated land is the bottom line of food security for 1.4 billion Chinese people.
At the end of 2021, the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee will conduct a special study on "agriculture, rural areas and farmers".
General Secretary Xi Jinping once again put forward clear requirements for the protection of cultivated land: 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land must live up to its name, farmland is farmland, and it must be fertile land.
This means that in order to keep the red line of cultivated land, not only the quantity cannot be reduced, but also the quality cannot be "flexible".
However, a fact that has to be faced is that the amount of cultivated land for rice bowls is decreasing, and the local quality is also deteriorating.
what happened to the farmland
All things are born.
Zhu Daolin, deputy dean of the School of Land Science and Technology of China Agricultural University and director of the China Land Policy and Law Research Center, said that cultivated land is the natural foundation of national food security and is naturally scarce.
The current problem of cultivated land is manifested in the decrease in the number of cultivated land, and the trend of decreasing high-quality cultivated land is also continuing.
According to statistics, from 1957 to 1996, the average annual net decrease of cultivated land in my country exceeded 6 million mu; from 1996 to 2008, the average annual net decrease was more than 10 million mu; from 2009 to 2019, the average annual net decrease exceeded 11 million mu.
This trend is reflected in the per capita arable land area, which is 1.59 mu for the first survey (the first national land survey), 1.52 mu for the second survey, and 1.36 mu for the third survey.
The existing 1.918 billion mu of arable land, if reduced at this rate, may break the red line of 1.8 billion mu in 10 years.
The facts are startling.
At present, the amount of cultivated land in some provinces has exceeded the red line of cultivated land, and some are even lower than the designated permanent basic farmland area.
The three national land surveys show that in the past 10 years, the net flow of cultivated land in my country was 112 million mu to forest land, and the net flow to garden land was 63 million mu. More than 62 million mu of flat land with a slope of less than 2 degrees was used for tree planting.
The reporter reviewed the typical cases reported by various places in recent years and found that in addition to being used for economic construction, the reduction of cultivated land mainly includes the following categories: some illegally occupy permanent basic farmland for greening and afforestation; In the name of river and wetland management, some occupy permanent basic farmland without authorization, dig lakes and build artificial wetlands; The land space planning avoids the approval of occupation of permanent basic farmland; in some cases, there is a situation where the first use is not approved, the less approved is more, and the first is occupied by the second.
Different from the reduction in the amount of arable land and the destruction of the arable layer, the “non-grain transformation” of arable land means that some arable land suitable for grain cultivation and originally cultivated for grain is used for other agricultural purposes for various reasons.
The "non-grain" of arable land is directly related to the benefits of grain cultivation.
Zhu Daolin calculated an account. In 2021, the national average grain output per mu is 387 kilograms. If the land transfer fee is 500 yuan/mu, at the current grain price level, it is not profitable to grow grain.
Since the land transfer fee is a cost to be paid by the operator, in the context of the relatively low income of grain production, the cultivated land obtained through the transfer is often used for more efficient non-grain farming.
Remote sensing monitoring data show that about 70% of the existing cultivated land is actually grown for grain, and the rest are cash crops, garden land, forest land, and fallow.
A 2021 survey by the teachers and students of Nanjing Forestry University's "Chinese Village Economy" research group in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province found that the average net income per mu of grain-growing households is only 34 yuan, and some households are forced to reduce the area or adjust the structure.
What's more serious is that due to ecological protection, the reserve resources of cultivated land are seriously insufficient, and some of the existing cultivated land has to be withdrawn.
According to the survey results of the national arable land reserve resources released at the end of 2016, after continuous reclamation, the total area of arable land reserve resources is 80.29 million mu, and the large-scale development and utilization method is no longer applicable.
Among them, 47.22 million mu are limited by water resources and are not suitable for development and utilization in the short term.
The latest data shows that there are still more than 80 million mu of cultivated land with slopes of more than 25 degrees and the cultivated land distributed under the high water level of river courses and lake areas, which are unstable cultivated land and need to be gradually withdrawn.
The problem of cultivated land is also reflected in the quality.
The quality of arable land in my country can be described as "innate deficiencies", and high-quality arable land resources are in short supply.
Zhu Daolin introduced that the cultivated land in areas with one crop per year accounted for 48%, and the cultivated land in areas with an annual rainfall of less than 800 mm accounted for 65%.
Tang Huajun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Technical Committee of China Yangling Cultivated Land Protection and Quality Improvement Innovation Center, said that the national cultivated land is divided into 10 quality grades from high to low, and the average grade is only 4.76.
Among them, the first- to third-class arable land accounted for only 31%, and the middle and low-yield fields accounted for more than two-thirds.
Walking into a cornfield in Lishu County, Siping City, Jilin Province, the reporter identified the blurred boundary between black soil and deep loess at the observation point of the black soil section.
Wang Guiman, head of the Lishu County Agricultural Technology Promotion Station, introduced that since the black soil layer was reclaimed in the late Qing Dynasty, due to heavy use and light maintenance, coupled with wind erosion and water erosion, the annual reduction of about 3 mm.
If no effective measures are taken, in a few decades, I am afraid it will disappear.
Black soil is recognized as the most fertile soil in the world. It takes 200 to 400 years to form a 1 cm thick layer of black soil under natural conditions. It is called "the giant panda in the cultivated land".
The black soil region of Northeast my country is one of the three major black soil regions in the world and the most important commercial grain base in China.
However, the degradation of black soil in Northeast China is serious, and the cultivated layer continues to thin. About half of the cultivated land is less than 20 cm thick, and the organic matter content in some places has dropped significantly compared with the beginning of reclamation.
The degradation of black soil is the epitome of the problem of "acquired imbalance" of cultivated land quality in my country.
Chen Zhangquan, a first-level inspector of the Farmland Construction Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that for a long time, due to high-intensity utilization, the basic soil fertility of cultivated land has been declining.
Compared with the 1980s, the degradation momentum of local areas is obvious, especially the degradation of black land in the northeast, acidification of cultivated land in the south, and salinization of cultivated land in the north.
Due to comprehensive factors such as climate and acid rain, the strongly acidified arable land has increased by more than 70%, and due to the imbalance of water and salt movement, the salinized arable land has increased by 30%.
Zhou Wei, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and deputy director of the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Agricultural Zoning of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that in terms of cultivated land types, my country's cultivated land can be divided into "seven lands", namely black land in the northeast, dry land in the north, paddy fields in the south, and paddy fields in the south. Dry land, saline-alkali land, facility agricultural land and reserve arable land.
Taking the dry land in the north as an example, due to high-intensity utilization, shallow rotation of cultivated land, and overexploitation of groundwater, the cultivated land in the North China Plain has become shallower and has poor water and fertilizer storage capacity.
Taking the paddy fields in the south as an example, the area of low-yield paddy soil exceeds 100 million mu, and intensive planting has made typical problems of paddy soil such as “thin, flat, rotten, sour, and cold” increasingly serious.
In the case of facility agricultural land, due to long-term mulching cultivation and high input of pesticides and fertilizers, problems such as secondary salinization, nutrient imbalance, and aggravation of soil-borne diseases generally occur in facility soil.
The northward shift of the layout in recent years is also a major manifestation of the problem of cultivated land.
Guo Yongtian, director of the Farmland Construction Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that 64% of my country's arable land is located in the north of the Qinling-Huaihe River. .
The five provinces of Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia, Henan, Jilin and Xinjiang account for 40% of the country's arable land.
Even under the same arable land area, this layout change will correspondingly reduce arable land productivity.
Whether there is harvest or not depends on water, and water conservancy is very important to solve the problem of cultivated land.
The effective irrigation area of my country's farmland has grown to 1.037 billion mu, and the water-saving irrigation area has reached 560 million mu.
However, the reporter found that in some places, there is a problem of heavy construction and light management and protection. The daily management and protection are not in place, and the irrigation facilities cannot be repaired in a timely and effective manner.
In some medium-sized irrigation areas, leakage, collapse and breach of canal systems are common, which directly restricts the quality of cultivated land.
Where is the difficulty in arable land protection?
Then, how did the problem of cultivated land arise, and where is the crux?
Throughout human history, cultivated land has received much attention because of its relationship to survival and development.
After the Industrial Revolution, especially after the development of modern cities, the contradiction between cultivated land protection and economic development has become increasingly prominent.
This is a common problem in the world. my country is in the process of industrialization, and this contradiction is inevitable.
On the one hand, land investment supports the miracle of China's economic growth.
According to data recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics, my country's total economic output has exceeded 110 trillion yuan, ranking second in the world, accounting for more than 18% of the global economy.
The added value of my country's industry and manufacturing has ranked first in the world for more than 10 consecutive years, and the output of more than 220 industrial products has ranked first in the world.
Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, land-related fiscal revenue has played a special role in the development of local economies, promoted the process of industrialization and urbanization, and is the key to the formation of the extraordinary supply capacity of infrastructure.
On the other hand, "with the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the demand for industrial land, transportation land, and urban expansion land is very strong, and the contradiction between supply and demand of construction land is prominent, which is an important reason for the continuous reduction of cultivated land."
Guo Yongtian said that the land around the city is relatively flat, and it is good land and large-scale land. When the city grows up like a pie, it coincides with the high-quality cultivated land, and many land gradually become part of the city.
The third national land survey showed that in 2019, the construction land was 613 million mu, an increase of 128 million mu or 26.5% compared with the second survey in 2009.
The underlying reason is that GDP growth is actually related to the locality, but food security is a long-term macroeconomic situation that has little to do with local economic development.
Under the leadership of this kind of thinking, the string of food security has been relaxed, and the vigilance against the decline in the local grain planting area has been relaxed, and the responsibility and obligation of ensuring national food security has not been fully realized.
Moreover, for a long time in the past, many places relied on an extensive economic development model, and the efficiency of land use was low, which kept the demand for construction land high.
This conflict between economic development and cultivated land protection is more obvious in the economically developed regions of the South, and it is also the direct cause of the continuous northward shift of the distribution of cultivated land in my country.
In many economically developed areas, high-quality arable land is often most easily occupied by construction, and the quality of supplementary arable land is difficult to guarantee.
In the vast countryside, although the resident population tends to decrease, the rural construction land does not decrease but increases.
The Ministry of Natural Resources once stated that the illegal occupation of cultivated land to build houses is spreading from local areas to the whole country, from ordinary houses to buildings and villas, from farmers' self-occupation to illegal sales, and from single households to organized implementation.
The third national land survey shows that 529 million mu of land is used for urban villages and industrial and mining, of which village land accounts for 329 million mu, accounting for 62%.
The key factor behind this is that my country implements a dual land system between urban and rural areas. Rural land is collectively owned. Before the reform of collective commercial construction land, it could only be traded in the market after being expropriated by the state.
At the same time, with the increase of rural population and the improvement of economic conditions, the demand for housing has increased rapidly.
However, in many places, the distribution of homesteads still follows the distribution pattern of the year.
Driven by internal and external factors, the illegal occupation of farmland to build houses in rural areas has been repeatedly prohibited.
In addition to the relatively low efficiency, the important reason for the "non-grain" of cultivated land is that some localities have unilaterally implemented agricultural structural adjustment.
Zhu Daolin analyzed that since diversification has a great effect on increasing agricultural income, some localities simply interpret the adjustment of agricultural structure as reducing food production, and some business entities illegally plant trees and dig ponds on permanent basic farmland.
Gao Qiang, director of the Rural Policy Research Center of Nanjing Forestry University, said that after the large-scale transfer of cultivated land by industrial and commercial capital, the one-sided pursuit of profits, the realization of intensive planting, and the conversion of commercial crops have intensified the tendency of "non-grain".
In addition, some places have misunderstandings about the construction of ecological civilization. They believe that ecological civilization is to build landscapes, afforestation, and grass. Therefore, trees are planted on arable land or even permanent basic farmland, and lakes are dug to create landscaping.
In the context of urbanization, some farmers choose to plant trees with higher efficiency and less labor input.
Guo Yongtian analyzed that the core problem of farmland protection is that there are multiple conflict goals in the use of farmland, and a game of multiple interests has emerged around farmland protection.
In this game, the maximization of economic interests often prevails.
"Grow food, or build a house?" "Grow food, or grow cash crops?" Basically, this is a consideration for choosing national interests or local interests.
As early as the Central Rural Work Conference in 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that to stick to the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land, everyone has issued a military order, which must be done, and there is no room for bargaining!
During local investigations in recent years, the general secretary has attached great importance to the inspection of cultivated land. He said on different occasions that the protection of cultivated land should be done like the protection of cultural relics, or even the protection of giant pandas.
However, the phenomenon of disguised occupation of cultivated land has not been eliminated everywhere.
While the quantity of cultivated land is declining, attention should also be paid to the neglect of the quality of cultivated land.
The improvement of cultivated land quality is a huge systematic project, which is difficult and slow to bear fruit.
In particular, the soil quality cannot be seen or touched, and problems can only be found through laboratory testing and other means. Once problems are found, it is very difficult to manage them.
Due to the practical need to increase production, agricultural production has been using large quantities of chemical fertilizers and pesticides for a long time, resulting in aggravating the degradation of cultivated land.
A typical survey by the Agricultural Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs shows that the ratio of planting and breeding at the household level has dropped from more than 70% in the 1980s to about 10% now, resulting in a decline in the organic matter content of cultivated land.
Wang Guiman said bluntly, "In the past, farmyard manure was used for farming, and the straw was converted into manure and returned to the ground, and the land was cultivated and raised again. After the extensive use of chemical fertilizers, the nutrients of the black soil were lost little by little."
Another important reason is that farmers' feelings for the land are also changing, and the land is neglected.
Liu Shouying, Dean of the School of Economics at Renmin University of China, said that the basic trajectory of the first generation of migrant workers is to leave the soil - leave the village - return to the village, while the second generation of migrant workers basically leave the soil - leave the village - do not return to the village. The relationship between the two countries and the concept of agriculture have fundamentally changed, and more and more farmers are no longer keen on maintaining soil fertility.
The issue of arable land also has legal system reasons.
There is no specific farmland protection law in my country.
In 2021, Article 12 of the newly revised "Land Management Law Implementation Regulations" stipulates "strictly controlling the conversion of cultivated land into forest land, grassland, garden land and other agricultural land".
Prior to this, there were "prohibition" clauses on the occupation of permanent basic farmland for the development of forestry and fruit industry and digging ponds for fish farming, but there were no penalties, and there was still no basis for local disposal.
This leads to lax law enforcement and illegal occupation of land.
How did the 1.8 billion mu red line come from?
Whether it is to analyze the specific manifestations of cultivated land problems or the underlying causes, a topic that cannot be avoided is the "red line of cultivated land".
How did the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land come from?
Chen Xiwen, chairman of the Agriculture and Rural Committee of the National People's Congress, said that the 1.8 billion mu was calculated based on factors such as economic development, population status, and grain yield per unit.
Taking into account the multiple cropping index, 1.8 billion mu of arable land corresponds to an annual crop sown area of 2.4 billion mu.
Among them, the sown area of grain is about 1.7 billion mu, and the rest is used for cotton, oil, sugar, vegetables and other planting.
From another point of view, the average yield per mu of grain in my country is less than 800 catties. Based on the sown area of 1.7 billion mu, the corresponding yield is more than 1.3 trillion catties.
In recent years, my country has imported a large number of agricultural products, which is equivalent to using foreign farmland in disguise.
Taking soybeans with the largest import volume as an example, 96.52 million tons will be imported in 2021. If domestic production is calculated, more than 700 million mu of sown area will be needed if the yield is 130 kg per mu.
Considering that the demand for food is still growing, the red line has nowhere to go.
1.8 billion mu is just an estimate, and its actual direction is also advancing with the times.
During the National "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period, it was proposed that the red line of arable land should be maintained at 1.8 billion mu, the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" increased to 1.818 billion mu, and the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" was clearly maintained at 1.865 billion mu.
The changes in the red line data of cultivated land reflect the continuous pressure on the country's goal of cultivated land protection.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the protection of cultivated land has gone through many twists and turns, and dealt with different contradictions in different periods, and made a lot of efforts to implement the protection of cultivated land.
In that year, under the background of "grain as the key link", the protection of cultivated land was paid attention to.
Zhu Daolin recalled that from the 1950s to the 1970s, the agricultural reclamation system was fully developed, and steep slopes were reclaimed on a large scale to make terraced fields, and the scale of cultivated land developed.
In 1978, in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang County, Anhui Province, the "household contracted production" was explored, and the rural reform was kicked off.
The grain output of the Xiaogang production team in 1979 was equivalent to the total output from 1955 to 1970.
During this period, farmers have a new awareness of the protection of cultivated land - to protect cultivated land means to protect jobs and income.
However, since then, the rural economy has developed rapidly, and the demand for housing of farmers has become increasingly strong.
In 1981, the State Council issued the "Emergency Notice on Preventing Rural House Construction and Occupation of Cultivated Land" to regulate this.
The reform of the fiscal and taxation system in 1985 greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of local governments for economic development, resulting in a large amount of land occupation and serious loss of cultivated land.
In 1986, my country promulgated the Land Administration Law to regulate the use of cultivated land in the form of laws.
In this year, the State Land Administration, an agency specializing in the management of national land resources, was born, changing the situation of dividing urban land and rural land.
Beginning in the 1990s, the “development zone fever” in various places resulted in the occupation of a large amount of cultivated land, which also led to distortions in the price of industrial land. Due to the low cost of land, enterprises took up too much land, and there were disadvantages such as land speculation in the parks. Especially common in the Midwest.
In view of this, in 1992, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Notice on Prohibiting the Abandonment of Cultivated Land Occupied by Development Zones and Urban Construction" to strictly investigate and punish the intensified illegal occupation of cultivated land.
In 1997, the "Notice on Further Strengthening Land Management and Effectively Protecting Cultivated Land" was issued, proposing the implementation of the basic farmland protection and the dynamic balance system of the total amount of cultivated land.
In 1998, the Land Administration Law was revised.
In 2006, the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" proposed for the first time a binding target for the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land.
During this period, my country also implemented the provincial government's arable land protection responsibility target assessment system, and established a national land inspection system.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the central government has paid unprecedented attention to the protection of cultivated land, and the reform of the rural land system and the national food security strategy have accelerated.
In 2013, the Central Rural Work Conference proposed to adhere to the national food security strategy of focusing on me, based on the country, ensuring production capacity, moderate imports, and scientific and technological support.
At the same time, it proposes to continuously explore effective forms of collective ownership of rural land, implement collective ownership, stabilize farmers' contract rights, and activate land management rights, and innovatively answers the question of "who will farm and how".
In 2017, the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed that the second round of land contracts should be extended for another 30 years.
The four beams and eight pillars of the farmland protection policy began to be constructed.
In 2017, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Cultivated Land and Improving the Balance of Occupation and Compensation", proposing to resolutely prevent the phenomenon of occupying more and making up for less, occupying the superior to make up for the inferior, and occupying paddy fields to make up for dry land, and to standardize the adjustment and management of supplementary cultivated land indicators in the province. , and explore the national coordination of supplementary cultivated land.
In 2019, my country revised the Land Management Law again.
In 2020, the central government proposed that the party and government should be equally responsible for food security.
In 2021, the implementation regulations of the Land Management Law will be revised.
Regulatory policy tools have been continuously improved.
In 2020, the General Office of the State Council successively issued the "Notice on Resolutely Stopping the "Non-agriculturalization" of Cultivated Land and "Opinions on Preventing the "Non-agriculturalization" of Cultivated Land to Stabilize Grain Production. Illegal land use, clarified the priority of arable land use, and launched a series of measures to prevent "non-grain".
In 2021, three departments including the Ministry of Natural Resources issued the "Notice on Issues Concerning Strict Control of the Use of Cultivated Land", requiring that permanent basic farmland shall not be converted into other agricultural land such as forest land, grassland and garden land, and land for the construction of agricultural facilities.
At the same time, the annual "in-out balance" is implemented for the conversion of cultivated land to other agricultural land and agricultural facility construction land.
In recent years, the state has vigorously promoted the construction of high-standard farmland, and a total of 900 million mu has been built so far.
Multi-departmental implementation of the national black soil protection project to promote acidification and saline-alkali farmland governance.
Guo Yongtian told reporters that through measures such as field remediation, soil improvement, and improvement of irrigation and drainage, the ability of high-standard farmland to resist disasters and reduce disasters has been significantly improved.
In 2021, 6.7 million mu of farmland in Gansu will continue to suffer from severe drought, and the disaster rate of high-standard farmland is 20 percentage points lower than that of ordinary farmland; typhoon "Fireworks" passed through Yuyao, Zhejiang, and the local high-standard farmland was discharged to a maximum depth of 60 cm in only two days. of stagnant water.
The reporter combed and found that around the protection of cultivated land, my country has formed three types of policy toolboxes: control, incentive and construction.
The management and control policy is to strictly restrict the occupation of cultivated land by means of planning control, use control, utilization plan, and balance of occupation and compensation.
The construction-oriented policy is to increase land productivity by increasing investment, including high-standard farmland construction and improving the quality of cultivated land.
Incentive policies are to subsidize grain farmers through economic means, and give incentives to places that protect cultivated land, including cultivated land fertility subsidies, cultivated land protection compensation mechanisms, etc.
The policies and measures that are tending to improve show that it is our firm determination to keep the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land, and there is no room for bargaining!
Protecting arable land is not just an economic account
The inherent shortage of agricultural resource endowments and the pressure of food supply from a large population have forced my country's arable land to be used excessively for a long time.
In fact, the protection of the quality and quantity of cultivated land is also a world-class problem.
In Europe in the 1970s, the Netherlands was one of the countries with the smallest per capita arable land in the world. Under the pressure of industrialization and urbanization, the average annual loss of arable land was 10,000 hectares.
To this end, the Netherlands has updated the relevant legal system for cultivated land protection, coordinated urban and rural land planning from both urban and rural areas, and prevented urbanization from eroding agricultural land.
Thanks to strict arable land protection, the Netherlands is the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world.
Although the national conditions and agricultural conditions are different, the stones of other mountains can attack jade.
For my country, the more important the safety of cultivated land is, the more difficult it is to protect cultivated land.
From the perspective of overall development and security, we must do everything possible to ensure the safety of cultivated land, and we must properly handle the three main contradictions between local and overall, economic interests and national security, and present and long-term.
The most urgent task at present is to adhere to multiple measures of cultivated land control, construction and incentives, build a cultivated land safety system that integrates quantity, quality, and utilization, and solve the problems of "is there land", "whether it is good to use", and whether to grow grain.
First of all, in response to conflicts of interest in land use, it is necessary to strictly control the amount of cultivated land to solve the problem of "have or not".
The method is to strengthen the control of the use of cultivated land, regulate the behavior of land transfer, and give priority to the protection of high-quality cultivated land.
In today's mature satellite remote sensing monitoring technology, illegal land occupation cannot escape the "eyeball".
In the satellite image, the fields are clearly visible, and the bay pond is unobstructed.
As long as the land is occupied, it must be monitored by the "eyes of the sky".
This enables timely detection of problem clues through regular remote sensing monitoring.
It is necessary to strictly control the occupation of cultivated land for construction land, strengthen local responsibilities, implement the same responsibility of the party and the government, and be held accountable for life.
Issue the arable land holding amount and permanent basic farmland protection target tasks with location and responsibility, and sign the arable land protection target responsibility letter.
For the illegal and substantial occupation of cultivated land discovered by "Tianyan", establish and improve the "linking increase and violation" mechanism to link the amount of illegal land with the land plan indicators.
According to statistics, the proportion of land circulation in my country has exceeded one third, and industrial and commercial capital accounts for about 10% of the land circulation.
In 2021, the "Administrative Measures for the Circulation of Rural Land Management Rights" proposed that "for industrial and commercial enterprises and other social capital to transfer land management rights, a hierarchical qualification review and project review system should be established in accordance with the law."
All localities should speed up the improvement of operational rules such as enterprise business reputation files and credit guarantees, strengthen the supervision of land transfer, and promptly pursue legal responsibilities for those who illegally occupy land or destroy cultivated strata.
The reporter's survey found that the rate of decrease of high-quality cultivated land is faster than that of ordinary cultivated land, and the decrease of cultivated land in developed areas is faster than that in less developed areas.
It is necessary to give priority to the arable land with better matching of light, water and soil, and higher multi-cropping index as permanent basic farmland, and implement special protection, especially to keep the arable land with sufficient water and heat and more than one year of maturity.
At the same time, for the cultivated land in the areas with outstanding comparative advantages, the advantageous production areas or industrial belts of different crops shall be delineated, and the location shall be locked to prevent the loss of high-quality cultivated land.
Secondly, in view of the overdraft of soil fertility, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of cultivated land quality and solve the problem of "good use" of cultivated land.
The method is to increase investment in arable land construction, accelerate scientific and technological innovation of arable land, and optimize the supporting facilities for the continued construction of irrigation areas.
During the interviews, all localities generally reported that the investment in high-standard farmland construction is far from the actual construction cost, and most local governments have difficulty matching financial funds, and management and maintenance funds are generally insufficient.
Wu Hongwei, deputy director of the Farmland Construction Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, suggested that all localities should increase the proportion of land transfer income for agriculture and rural areas, and give priority to high-standard farmland construction.
Strengthen the connection between farmland protection and financial incentives, credit guarantees, etc., and attract social capital and new entities to invest in high-standard farmland construction and operation management.
The improvement of cultivated land quality is a systematic project involving multiple disciplines such as agricultural machinery, agronomy, seeds, water and fertilizer.
For a long time, the distribution of my country's arable land scientific and technological forces has been scattered, and the idea of breaking through difficulties is not clear.
Not long ago, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences launched the "fertile field science and technology action", gathering agricultural resources, crop science, agricultural machinery and other disciplines in the academy to jointly tackle key problems.
In the next step, we should strengthen the integration of scientific and technological resources on a larger scale, promote the scientific and technological innovation of the whole chain of "basic research, technology research and development, product creation, and model construction", and build a national strategic scientific and technological force in arable land.
Water conservancy is a key element in improving the quality of cultivated land.
Ni Wenjin, deputy director and first-level inspector of the Rural Water Conservancy and Hydropower Department of the Ministry of Water Resources, said that my country's natural geographical conditions determine that agricultural production is highly dependent on irrigation.
It is necessary to speed up the continued construction and modernization of large and medium-sized irrigation areas, focusing on the main grain producing areas, carry out the reinforcement of key irrigation and drainage engineering facilities, and meet the supporting standards, and pay attention to the connection with the construction of high-standard farmland.
Zhang Baozhong, deputy director of the Water Conservancy Research Institute of the China Academy of Water Resources and Hydropower Sciences, believes that it is necessary to build water supply engineering systems such as water system connectivity, diversion, storage, irrigation and drainage according to local conditions, and to build a water control system with digital irrigation areas as the starting point will help cultivated land. Long-term improvement in quality.
Third, in response to the "non-grain transformation" of arable land, it is necessary to innovate incentive measures to solve the problem of "growing grain or not".
The method is to clarify the priority of arable land use, ensure the reasonable income of grain farmers, and expand the use of financial and insurance means.
The cultivated land is divided into general cultivated land, permanent basic farmland, and high-standard farmland.
The utilization of arable land cannot be considered entirely in accordance with the principle of benefit first.
It should be clarified that the general cultivated land should be mainly used for the production of grain and cotton, oil, sugar, vegetables and forage.
Permanent basic farmland is high-quality arable land, which has been designated as about 1.546 billion mu according to law, and should be mainly used for food production.
900 million mu of high-standard farmland has been built, all of which are used for grain production in principle.
It is necessary to guide the newly developed forestry and fruit industry uphill and uphill, and not to compete with grain for land.
However, "non-food" cannot be opposed to the adjustment of agricultural structure.
While preventing the increase of "non-grain", all localities must properly handle the stock problem.
During local research, farmers told reporters, "As long as we can make money from growing grain, the country's grain will be safe."
The issue of arable land should not only be regarded as an economic account, but also by economic means.
Different from "non-agriculturalization", different coping strategies are needed to prevent the "non-grain" of cultivated land.
It is necessary to comprehensively use policies, markets and other means to correct the "non-grain", so that business entities are willing to grow grain.
It is necessary to "know what is right", consolidate the food security responsibilities of local party committees and governments, and ensure the stability of the grain sown area in various provinces; and "supplement it with benefits", improve agricultural price and subsidy policies, and improve the agricultural socialization service system. Farmers benefit from growing crops.
In January 2022, the first arable land fertility index insurance in Sichuan Province was launched in Yibin City.
According to the underwriting Jintai Insurance Company, the insurance determines whether to trigger insurance compensation by monitoring changes in soil organic matter content.
The insurance period is 3 years. After participating in the insurance, farmers only need to pay a premium of 24 yuan per mu of land each year. If the monitoring shows that the organic matter content increases, farmers can receive compensation of up to 1,500 yuan per mu for 3 years.
As a financial innovation pilot project for supporting agriculture, the arable land fertility index insurance turns the disaster compensation of general policy agricultural insurance into a positive incentive, which is conducive to encouraging grain farmers, and the pilot program can be gradually expanded.
Every inch of land and every inch of gold is related to the national plan, and one ridge and one mu carry people's livelihood.
To protect arable land is to protect ourselves and future generations.
We must not make historical mistakes on the issue of arable land.
Only in this way can we achieve "but save an inch of land and leave it to the descendants to cultivate".
(Members of the research team: Xu Hanqiao, Jinliang, Huang Xiaofang, Ji Leilei)