1. Policy backgrounder and main content In recent years, as the ever-strengthening coordination of rural and urban development, and the supervision of farmers，burdens, the overall burdens have been controlled in a relative low level, causing the decrease of conflicts, happy life of farmers and the harmony and stability of rural life. But local governments and departments of some regions have lessened their consciousness of burden reduction, as agro illegal charges have been rampant; the burdens of village organizations and farmers' cooperatives have been increased, the "Case-by-Case" implementation has not been standardized, and the arbitrary charges and withholding of agro subsidy have been frequent, and the pressure to prevent the farmers' from going against the burdens has been huge. To tackle the new problems, the Ministry of Agriculture has worked with other five departments to issue the suggestions of reducing the farmers' burdens in 2013. The main contents are as follows.
1) General requirements Efforts should be made to pay high attention to the farmers, burden reduction, deeply implemented the documents of the State Council, further advance the organization and leadership, improve the management, enhance the priority governance, extend the supervision coverage, strengthen the monitoring, practically reduce the farmers' burdens, and resolutely prevent the farmers，burdens from rebounding.
2) Main missions The first is to deeply conduct the management of agro arbitrary charges. Efforts should be made to strengthen the management of birth control, rural construction, compulsory education, and agro irrigation, and to rectify the arbitrary charges on village-level organizations and farmers' professional cooperatives. It is strictly prohibited that the agro administrative charges be passed on to farmers.
The second is to advance the management of "One case, One meeting" fund and labor raising. Efforts should be made to advance the direction and supervision in this aspect, deeply conducted policy publicity and training, and advance the monitoring and special checking of the fund and labor raising plan. It is required that the provinces setting the fund raising standards according to farmers’ per ca-pita incomes act on the basis of absolute numbers. It is strictly prohibited to raise fund and labor to farmers unless the raising plan has been reviewed by the county-level departments in charge of the management of farmers，burdens. Efforts should be made to organize the standardization of "Case-by-Case," so as to further extend the pilot coverage of the information system of "Case-by-Case."
The third is to further extend the supervision coverage of farmers' burdens. Efforts should be made to innovate the supervision mentality, extend the supervision coverage, and establish the healthy policy measures, so as to practically prevent the farmers' burdens from breeding in new areas. It is also expected to establish the reviewing system of rural infrastructure projects and the management mechanism of farmers' participation. Efforts should be made to strengthen the implementation of the farmers- benefited subsidy, and prevent deduction, arbitrary charges, and placement of commodities.
The fourth is to strengthen the checking and monitoring of farmers' burden reduction and benefiting policies. The annual checking of such policies should be held, so as to investigate the existing problems that infringe regulations. The “One case, One meeting” special checking should be organized, together with the supervision of farmers，burden reduction, so as to urge the local governments to seriously conduct supervision and management. Efforts should be made to rectify the farmers' burdens, so as to deeply solve the problems of heavy burdens for farmers in some areas. It's also required to strengthen the supervision and handling of farmers’ key impeaching cases concerning their over-loaded burdens, so as to deeply conduct supervision of farmers，burdens.
The fifth is to deepen the reform of farmers' burden reduction. Efforts should be made to organize the agro irritation investigation of the Yellow River's basin, so as to promote the decrease of farmer's tax expenditure. It is also expected to explore to increase the financial support of the Party newspaper, resolutely rectify the newspaper apportion, and seriously implement the villages, subscription of newspaper at public expense.
2. Policy implementation and effects evaluation
1) Efforts have been made to underline the deep conduction of farmers，burden reduction. In 2013, the ministry has organized the special campaign against agro arbitrary charges. Hence the work has made new progress, as 364 charges have been canceled, 116 lowered, 190 million yuan returned to farmers, 353 million yuan saved from the farmers' financial burdens. Efforts have been made to rectify the increasing farmers，burdens, as 6 381 illegal cases have been corrected, 50 illegal documents canceled, 43.403 million yuan returned, 558 long-term mechanism established. Efforts have been made to standardize the charges of farmers' cooperatives, as 42 charges canceled, 37 lowered, and 15.69 million yuan reduced. The Ministry of Agriculture has chosen 6 counties and cities of 4 provinces that have remarkable farmers' burdens, based on the problems found in fanners' petitions and inspection of farmers，burdens, to return 477 thousand yuan to farmers, as 27 people were held responsible for the problems, and 15 supervision mechanisms of farmers, burdens were set up.
2) Efforts have been made to standardize and improve the “Case-by-Case” supervision. Relative training classes have been held, to train supervisors of provincial and city levels of farmers' burdens. The "Case-by-Case” supervision information pilot has also been promoted from 42 counties to 145. The Ministry of Agriculture has issued the notice to conduct the model county setting of "Case-by-Case" standards management. All the local governments have been organized to implement the model setting based on the standards of “sound management system, standardized implementation, strict supervision and management, and remarkable effects." The ministry has, after procedures of county-level report, provincial recommendation and strict review, has identified 100 model counties that practice standardized "Case-by-Case." 9 provinces have corrected the practice of setting the standard limits of fund and labor raising of "Case-by-Case" based on the farmers' net income.
3) Efforts have been made to strengthen coordination and seriously implemented the monitor of farmers’ burdens. Based on the ministry's special monitoring of farmers' burdens in 8 provinces, the State Council has conducted special monitoring of the farmers' burdens in 3 provinces of Heilongjiang, Anhui and Shandong, during which nearly a hundred of problems of 22 kinds have been found, 663.5 thousand yuan returned to the farmers, 31 people held responsible for the problems, and 13 relative systems set up, so as to practically safeguard the farmers, interests.
4) Efforts have been made to strengthen the leaders' responsibilities and keep the overall coordination of the farmers’ burden reduction. Based on the requirements of the central government, local governments of all levels have continued the burden reduction accountability system to adjust to the change of situations. Efforts have been made to stick to the accountability system of the party and government chiefs5 and that of the departments in charge. 4 provinces have resumed the provincial-level burdens reduction team, which strengthened the coordination mechanism of the job.
In 2013, the charge directly shouldered by China's farmers is 43.67 yuan per capita, which included the collective charges, social burdens, and fund raising for "Case-by-Case," the 1.96 yuan, or 4.3 percent decrease than last year. After the cancelation of agro tax, this has been the first time since the farmers' burdens see decrease. The farmers have got relatively low burdens, and the situation of their burdens reduction has been stable. However, the arbitrary agro charges have been frequent in some places, as the fund raising and apportion of farmers have increased, and the burden reduction and farmers -benefiting policies have not been implemented as they should have. Hence the farmers have been under pressure which would lead to negative impacts if things were not handled well.
