In 2015，the Ministry of Finance arranged 651.27 billion yuan for agriculture, forestry and water conservancy. Among which, 66.06 billion yuan was spent on agriculture, forestry and water conservancy on central government level, and 585.21 billion yuan was transferred and spent on the local level.
1. Special transfer funding increased stably In 2015, MoA and the Ministry of Finance together managed 250.3 billion yuan special transfer funds, 12.668 billion yuan more compared with that of 2014. Guaranteed the implementation of the established projects, MoA focused on expanding the confirmation, registration and issuance of certificates on the contracted management rights of rural land, increasing funding for protecting agricultural resources and ecological environment, and subsidizing funding for pilot projects on northeastern black soil protection, human food to animal feed transformation, rural primary, secondary and tertiary industry integrated developments. Some 10 major categories were included in the special transfer fund: 1) Subsidized 144.59 billion yuan for agricultural support and protection. This new subsidy combined the old direct subsidies for grain production, the general subsidies for purchasing agricultural supplies and subsidies for purchasing superior crop seed varieties. 2) Subsidized 23.75 billion yuan for agricultural machinery and tools to support agricultural machine and tool purchasing, deep soil loosening, and discarding and upgrading of agricultural machineries. 3) Subsidized 5.18 billion yuan to fund modern agricultural development. The subsidy was used to support livestock animal breeding improvement, expanding the number of female livestock animals, comprehensive utilization of grassland resources in southern China, farmers training, livestock and aquaculture standardization, high-yield and high-quality alfalfa plantation, farmers' cooperatives establishment and so on. 4) Subsidized 13.55 billion yuan for agricultural technology promotion and services to support issues such as local-level agricultural technology promotion system reform and construction, to increase the production of grain, cotton, oilseed and sugar, to standardize the production of vegetable, fruit and tea farms, to support trial soil testing for formulated fertilization and agricultural product processing in the producing areas, to establish modern agricultural demonstration bases, to provide comprehensive plans for groundwater overdraft in Hebei Province, to provide services for socialization of the entire agricultural production process, and to help with the integrated development for primary, secondary and tertiary industries in rural areas. 5) Some 20.22 billion yuan devoted to agricultural resources and ecological environmental protection to mainly support grassland ecological environment protection award and subsidy, to protect and improve the quality of arable land, to provide comprehensive solutions for heavy-metal pollution in cultivated land in Hunan province, to convert livestock wastes to resources, to realize human food to livestock feedstuff transformation and to increase fish reproduction and release. 6) Some 6.01 billion yuan was used for animal epidemic prevention to help with issues such as funding animal culling during major epidemics, developing treatment methods to reduce harm during farming process and subsidizing local level animal epidemic prevention. 7) Some 3.49 billion yuan was used for agricultural disaster relief, which mainly include expenses spent on mixed sprays to protect winter wheat, major crops’ insect control and preventative measures, grassland fire belt construction, grassland rats management and prevention and disaster emergency responses. 8) Some 4.58 billion yuan was used for confirming, registering and issuing certificates on the contracted management rights of rural land. 9) Some 25.07 billion yuan was subsidized for diesel used in fishery. 10) Some 1.323 billion yuan was spent on modern agricultural industrial technology system construction. Aside from the above-mentioned categories, some 2.537 billion yuan was spent on other issues. Major issues include the prevention and solution of heavy-metal pollution in agriculture production areas, the treatment methods to reduce the harm of sick and dead pigs during slaughtering process, awarding major seed production counties, and structural adjustment of com industry in northeastern China.
2. Financial and monetary support to agriculture achieved significant breakthrough In 2015, MoA and other related ministries intensified the investigation and research, promoted the implementation and achieved many important breakthroughs in financial and monetary support for agriculture. First, MoA deployed and implemented the construction of rural credit guarantee system, and realized financial and monetary coordinated support to important agricultural innovations. MoA, Ministry of Finance and China Banking Regulatory Commission published the Guiding Opinions on Financial Support for the Construction of a Rural Credit Guarantee System to utilize the fund for moderate-scale agricultural management to support the construction of rural credit guarantee system, and strive to establish a devoted, independent national rural credit guarantee policy system across central, provincial and city/county levels. Second, MoA expanded the pilot programs of financial and monetary support to agriculture and continued the pilot programs in different areas, with focus on areas that receive poverty alleviation aid. MoA also supported pilot programs of subsidizing agricultural machinery and credit insurance, and promoted "Internet+" rural finance pilot programs. MoA actively coordinated and promoted the pilot programs to be expanded from the sample to the whole to enlist livestock scale operation into the financial and monetary support pilot programs. Modern agricultural demonstration areas award and subsidy were arranged to implement financial innovation pilot programs in one third of the counties.
3. Financial support for agricultural insurance increased In 2015, MoA coordinated with the China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Finance and published the Notice on Further Improving the Drafting of Clauses on Agricultural Insurance Products Receiving Insurance Premium Subsidies of the Central Treasury, and innovated and promoted agricultural insurance on institutional level. First, the insurance coverage was expanded. Planting industry insurance providers were required to cover storms, floods, hails, freeze disasters, droughts and other natural disasters, as well as losses caused by diseases, pests, weeds and rats and so on. Farming industry insurance providers should cover diseases and epidemics, and the insurance providers were required to reimburse the farmers when the government issued forced culling during highly communicable diseases (the reimbursement can deduct the government culling subsidy). The insurance coverage was also expanded to cover directly materialized cost or feeding cost. Insurance policies should encourage the innovation of multi-level, high-security products that fulfill the needs of new operation entities. Planting industry insurances and large livestock insurances that cover cases that include female pig reproduction, live pig and dairy cows should not set deductible limits. The reimbursement limit was lowered such that if more than 80 percent of the agricultural products were lost, the insurance provider should reimburse for 100 percent.
The insurance cost was also reduced. Major agricultural provinces enjoyed much of the cost deduction and some areas enjoyed almost 50 percent of price drop. In addition, MoA coordinated with the Ministry of Finance and published the specific measures to reduce insurance cost in counties with high grain production by issuing subsidies. The subsidy will gradually benefit 47.5 percent of the counties in the mid-west, and 42.5 percent of the counties in eastern China.
