1. Policy background and main content In recent years, with the ever-strengthening, earnest implementation of burden-lightening policies and policies on supporting agriculture, benefit farmers, and raising rural living standards, overall farmers' burdens have been relatively low, which enhanced the rural reform and development, and kept the rural society's harmony and stabilization. However, in some areas, the spirit to lighten farmers，burden has diluted, and supervision has been weakened, and there are still problems concerning agriculture-related charges, one project, "One case, One meeting" fund and labor raising, and new problems such as charging illegal fees from villages, farmers' cooperatives and other new agricultural business entities have emerged, and issues that add burden to farmers happen from time to time during the implementation of policies to strengthen agriculture, benefit fanners and raise rural living standards. According to 2015 No.l document's requirement of further lightening farmers, burdens, MoA and 5 other ministries together issued 2015 Guiding Opinions on Implementation of Lightening Farmers' Burdens (2015 No.8), and made general arrangements on the task. The main content of the guiding opinions include:
1) Consistently strengthened the supervision on village-level burdens. Organized and launched rectifying issues that add weight to the burdens of villages, and correcting the phenomenon of passing on the government and departments, liabilities of constructions and services charges to villages, and abolish activities that require villages to pay money or labor to earn qualifications, and promote and improve democratic management of village-level spending and departmental supervision system. Intensively regulated the issue of using public expense to subscribe newspapers, and determined to resolve the issue of unjustified proration of newspapers and periodicals by withholding subscriptions or fractioning the subscription task.
2) Strictly regulated and managed agriculture-related charges and prices. Continued to take special measures on rural mandatory education, rural building construction, rural family planning and farmers' electricity usage, and to specify supervising responsibilities, and to promote solutions to industry-wise farmers' burdens. Strictly carried out the auditing policy when it comes to agriculture-related charges, and prevented from ultra vires action of setting up administrative and institutional changes. Deepened public notification system when it comes to agriculture-related charges and prices, and related department should publicly notify the charged-projects, standards, approving institutions and supervision hotline. Unjustified increase of charging items and raises of price as well as add on items are strictly forbidden.
3) Regulated and implemented policies of "One case, One meeting" for fund raising and labor gathering. Further improved these policies, and appropriately defined the applicable situations for fund raising and labor gathering. Innovated democratic agenda, and gradually decreased the limit of fund raising and labor gathering. Strengthened the supervision for "One case, one meeting" programs, and strictly followed auditing of fund raising and labor raising, deepened special examinations and auditing, and heavily focused on issues such as replacing labor with fund and starting constructions with financial deficit. Promoted "One case, one meeting" award and subsidy mechanism, and enhanced the healthy development of village-level public welfare businesses.
4) Improved monitoring the farmers' burdens in new areas. Monitored the burdens of farmers, cooperatives, family farms and large, specialized agricultural entities and other new forms of business entities, and prevented from unjustified charges during registration, annual examination and confirmation. Intensively supervised the implementation of strengthening agriculture, benefiting farmers, and raising rural living standards, and seriously investigated and punished actions that add burdens to farmers, such as withholding fees and charges, rationing, charging fees in order to receive subsidy. Enhanced supervision on agricultural technology promotion, animal and plant epidemic disease prevention and treatment and food safety, and avoided charging for public interest services.
5) Enhanced supervision on issues related to farmers，burdens. Insisted on annual examinations, and combined provincial level annual checks, coordinated annual checks with provinces and ministries and joint meeting random checks on farmers' burdens, and innovated joint meeting examinations, examined the underlined tasks, and improved examination efficiency. Established and improved the public notification system to notify the public about the results of examinations. Continued comprehensive management of areas where many issues about farmers' burdens occur. Adopted the method of joint provincial-ministry treatment and management and independent provincial treatment and management together to effectively solve the issue of farmers' burdens on a regional level.
6) Improved working mechanism for lightening farmers' burdens. Insisted on having main leaders from governments of all levels to take charge and lead the task, and implementing the veto power in farmers，burden lightening. Further improved the supervision information card system, and updated the supervising information and hotline numbers in time to help farmers report their issues. Enhanced the system to monitor farmers' burdens, and established a monitor system that also cover new agricultural business entities and improved the monitoring quality. Established step-by-step supervising and monitoring system to ensure the successful implementation of burden lightening for farmers on all government levels.
2. Policy implementation and effects evaluation
1) Led in the right direction to focus on farmers' burden reduction. MoA carried out special programs to reduce unjustified agricultural charges and withholdings caused by industries. With the efforts from local governments, the program was effective. Some 536 unjustified charges were removed, which reduced 379 million yuan of burdens for farmers. MoA also cooperated with related provinces to resolve regional issues. They implemented special tasks in 8 counties where many issues of farmers, burdens occur. The special tasks reimbursed 13.7 million yuan, and reduced farmers' burdens worth 15.54 million yuan.
2) Adapted to new circumstances, and worked on alleviating village-level burdens. Special tasks were carried out to examine issues that add burdens to the villages, such as requiring the villages to provide matching funds, providing money to pass evaluations and donating funds. These tasks identified and reimbursed 35 million yuan unjustified charges, and avoided 319 million yuan of charges for village organizations. These tasks also improved the democratic management system and supervision systems of village-level organizational spending in some provinces.
3) Improved the management for "one case, one meeting" fund raising and labor gathering. Further improved the guidance for awarding and subsidizing "one case, one meeting," and enhanced plan review and special auditing for fund raising and labor gathering, and set up strict limit standards and agendas, and limited the number and ratio for subsidizing labor by providing funds. The examinations for “one case, one meeting” were deepened, which rectified some issues, including unwarranted implementations and village-level financial debts occurred during implementation in some regions. Promoted the improvement of award and subsidy system for "one case, one meeting," and expanded the coverage for award and subsidy. In 2015, the Ministry of Finance devoted 22.405 billion yuan to award and subsidize “one case, one meeting”. Public welfare businesses developed healthily in villages.
4) Efforts were made to implement the policies, and innovative supervision and examinations were carried out to relieve farmers, burden. In 2014，MoA published Jilin, Jiangsu and Gansu provinces' farmers' burden relief examination results on several media outlets, such as China Agriculture Information, and making such information public had a social impact. In 2015, the State Council held the joint conference with 6 ministries to relieve farmers' burdens with the participation of 6 ministries, and conducted random examinations on Shanxi, Zhejiang and Guizhou's efforts on burden relief. Innovative examinations were utilized, and more feedbacks were communicated, which improved the local governments' self-examinations and self-corrections. Local governments also carried out annual checks and random examinations on farmers' burden relief efforts, and some provinces also conducted secret investigations all year around. Efforts as such greatly protected farmers' legitimate rights and interests.
