1. Policy background and main content In recent years, local ministries have followed the guidance of the General Office of the State Council's opinions on further reducing farmers, burdens, enforced policies to benefit farmers, and kept farmers, burdens at a low level, which contributed greatly to promoting rural reforms and sustaining rural social stability and harmony. However, issues exist in some places that the initiative of reducing burdens weakened, the strength of supervision decreased, agricultural arbitrary charge happened frequently in rural organizations, burdens of new-type agricultural business entities emerged, fundraising and labor employment should be further standardized, and institutional factors involving in farmers' burdens should be eliminated. To further reduce farmers' burdens, the MoA worked with other five departments to issue suggestions on reducing farmers' burdens in 2014. The main content are as follows:
(1) General requirements. Efforts should be made to pay high attention to reducing farmers, burdens, implementing the documents of the State Council and the central government, further advancing organizational leadership, improving regulations, highlighting priority governance, and enhancing supervision. Corruption and malpractice should be punished in order to prevent farmers, burdens from rebounding.
(2) Main missions.
Firstly, agricultural arbitrary charges should be regulated. Efforts should be made to regulate charges for compulsory education, family planning, rural construction, agricultural machinery service, funeral service, and water and power service; policies should be implemented for charge reduction and exemption; government administrations and public institutions should be prohibited from compulsorily charging for administrative service; public service corporations should avoid excessive charges, compulsory charges and other unreasonable charges.
Secondly, conducts that add to the burdens of rural organizations should be regulated. The focus is on charges in the names of public welfare, upgrade, sponsorship, newspaper and magazine subscription and other services. Charges that are supposed to be paid by governments should not be passed to rural organizations. Governments should not demand rural organizations to pay for activities with the aim of completing government duties. Rural organizations should not illegally demand guarantee deposits and penalties to fund village affair management.
Thirdly, special audit should be conducted for the funding of the "Case-by-Case Approval System." Regulations and mechanism should be established for supervising the "Case-by-Case Approval System" projects.
Fourthly, the supervision coverage of farmers' burdens should be expanded. Efforts should be made to enhance supervision of rural infrastructure construction, public service, agricultural technology promotion, animals and plants diseases control and prevention, agro product quality check and other public services. The emergence of arbitrary charges in new fields should be prevented, such as family farms, professional farming big households and farmers' cooperatives.
Fifthly, the supervision of the implementation of farmers' burden reduction and benefiting policies should be reinforced. The investigation and supervision of new issues should be enhanced. Special inspections for farmers, burdens should be conducted regularly and with priorities, and annual inspections should be carried out. Cities and counties, which have more issues than the others, should be identified, and comprehensive approaches should be taken to prevent the rebound of farmers, burdens.
Sixthly, the reform of farmers' burden reduction should be promoted. Rural comprehensive reformation should be deepened to eliminate the institutional factors that contribute to farmers' burdens. Government investment mechanism and subscription methods should be improved, especially for the subscription of party newspaper and magazines. Government supports should be strengthened for improving irrigation facilities and advancing water-pricing reform, in order to reduce farmers' unreasonable water expenses.
2. Policy implementation and impact evaluation
(1) The collaboration between different departments was enhanced to carry out farmers' burden reduction. Special projects were conducted to deal with issues in rural compulsory education, family planning, rural construction, agricultural machinery service, funeral service, and water and power service; some 106 million yuan extra charges related to these issues was refunded to farmers, and the total reduction amount of farmers' burdens reached 888 million yuan. In regions where farmers' burden issues concentrated, the MoA and local governments of seven provinces selected nine counties (or cities) to conduct comprehensive burden reduction; some 6.856 million yuan was refunded to farmers, and 4.574 million yuan that had been apportioned to rural organizations was refunded.
(2) The problems of rural organizations' burdens were alleviated in an issue-oriented approach. Some 93 million yuan was refunded for supporting projects funding and upgrade tasks, and 193 million of rural organizations' burdens was relieved. Institutional documents were released in several provinces to standardize rural organizations' expenses and community social work mechanism.
(3) Policies were enacted to set strict standards for labor employment and funding for the "Case-by-Case Approval System." The MoA released a document on the identification and management of demonstration counties for the "Case-by-Case Approval System" standard management, which established a dynamic supervision mechanism for the demonstration counties; 240 projects in 60 counties went through special audits on fundraising, labor employment, use of funds and fund management, which corrected problems of turning the "Case-by-Case Approval System" to fixed charging projects, over-range fundraising and labor employment and rural debts. In 2014, the central government arranged 22.8 billion yuan to fund the "Case-by-Case Approval System," which promoted the construction of rural public welfare.
(4) Supervision and inspection of farmers, burdens have been conducted in new ways based on current situations. The MoA published a report on inspection of farmers' burdens in 2013 through news outlets, which prompted local governments to pay attention to farmers，burden reduction. In 2014, six ministries innovated inspection methods, refined inspection procedure, highlighted priorities, and enhanced notification. In selective inspections of three provinces including Jilin, Jiangxi and Gansu, the ministries addressed 141 issues, and prompted local governments to address 2,143 issues, which reduced 33.75 million yuan of farmers' burdens. Local governments carried out annual inspection of farmers' burdens and special inspections of the "Case-by-Case Approval System," which effectively protected farmers' legal rights.
In 2014, the fee directly paid by farmers is 38.49 yuan per capita (including collective charges, social burdens, and funding for the "Case-by-Case Approval System")，with a 5.18 yuan, or 11.9 percent decrease than that of previous year. After the abolishment of agricultural tax, farmers' burdens have been decreased for two consecutive years. Although farmers' burdens remain at a low level, the inspection results show that there are still issues of agricultural arbitrary charges, the increase of rural organizations' burdens, the lack of standardization for the "Case-by-Case Approval System," and withholding of agricultural subsidies. More need to be done to prevent farmers' burdens from rebounding.
