On 31 May 2017, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and General Office of the State Council printed and distributed the Guidelines for Accelerating the Establishment of Policy System and Cultivation of New Agricultural Entities (hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines). The training program for demo farmers’ cooperatives leaders’ capability enhancement being held in Beijing organized the trainees to study sincerely the policy and discuss how to advance the better implementation of the policy.

Strengthen cooperation among government departments

During the seminar, the trainees viewed unanimously that the new policy is with rich content, a clear system, and comprehensive consideration, but to be fully implemented, it is still required to overcome the problem of “governmental coordination”. The document sets up six major support policy systems: taxation, basic construction, finance, insurance, marketing, and human resources, involving almost all the administrative authorities as well as requiring partially the active collaboration of enterprises. But due to the features of the strip separation of administration, it is very hard for the local administrative authorities to communicate and coordinate with each other and to make joint force. Especially, the relevant support policies are already available for such four aspects as preferential taxation, land and power, financial loan and insurance, but the implementation at the grassroots is not so ideal. In this regard, the trainees suggest to control three key links in implementing the Guidelines:

  1. Emphasize on coordination. Currently, the central government already establishes the joint meeting system for the development of farmers’ cooperatives and many of the local governments also establish their respective joint mechanisms. However, they have played a limited role and it is relatively common for them to act separately. The trainees emphasized that the county-level government is the key to implementing the policy. It is suggested to enhance the responsibility of the county governments in implementing the Guidelines and strengthen the communication and coordination between the grassroots departments so as to advance jointly the proper implementation of the policy.
  2. Emphasize on clarification. Currently, the Guidelines are relatively strong in guidance but relatively weak inoperability. As for the grassroots, it cannot be executed without operation. The trainees suggest to study and formulate ASAP the supporting policies and clarify the responsible subjects and implementing rules for the sake of the grassroots to operate and execute.
  3. Emphasize on supervision. The trainees reflect that the central government has introduced good policies, but they cannot bring about an effect if the local governments fail to implement it. It is suggested to enhance the supervision over the implementation of policies and advance the actual implementation of support policies and the landing in the cooperatives finally.

Target the key points and make more efforts in resolving

In line with the six major support policy systems proposed by the Guidelines, the trainees expressed also their viewpoints, respectively on the difficult points and key points in implementation.

In terms of taxation policy, the trainees reflect that at present the cooperatives are registered as individuals and small corporate enterprises. The entity positioning affects directly the execution of the taxation policy. It is suggested the administration of industry and commerce and the administration of taxation can set up the independent corporate entities of cooperatives and define the relevant taxation management policy for the purpose of strengthening the execution of the taxation preference policy.

In terms of infrastructure construction, the trainees reflect that it is still a big problem for having the land for agricultural facility construction approved. Especially for the cooperatives engaged in pest control equipment and development of processing industry, it is very hard to obtain the land for garage, drying yard, warehouse, and workshop. In addition, the extent is different for the implementation of the relevant policies concerning the agricultural power price for primary processing of agricultural products and primary power prices for field precooling, and it needs to be further enhanced.

In terms of financial credit, all of the trainees appealed unanimously that the financial department should study and formulate at the earliest the method for a credit rating of cooperatives and provide credit products in compliance with the features of cooperatives. At present, most of the cooperatives are granted loans in the name of general directors, and the cooperatives cannot yet become the loan subject in compliance with the bank qualification. The general directors viewed that without resolving the problem of subject qualification, implementation of financial support policy merely indulges in empty talk. In the meantime, the general directors also suggest that the cooperatives should attach more importance to the asset accumulation and financial regulation for the sake of matching more smoothly with the financial services division.

In terms of insurance support, the trainees reflect generally the state invests more in supporting agricultural insurance, but the low premium affects the will of insurance companies for coverage and the low compensation rate affects the activeness of farmers for buying the insurance. Thus, the dilemma exists: farmers are unwilling to buy insurance on the one hand and insurance companies are unwilling to cover. In this regard, the trainees suggested: (1) establish the agricultural disaster relief fund to provide insurance companies and farmers with the basic assistance on disasters; (2) increase the compensation standard and motivate the activeness of farmers for buying insurance; (3) introduce the third-party evaluation institution to ensure to “compensate all that should be compensated” and eliminate the worries of farmers in buying insurance.

In terms of market expansion, the trainees reflect that it is imperative to support the certification of “three-product and one-landmark”, but it is necessary to explore how to encourage the development of e-business for agricultural products. The trainees viewed generally that the advantage of cooperatives is in production and it is essential to improve the product quality. Since the certification of “three-product and one-landmark” can effectively improve the quality of agricultural products, the support should be further strengthened. However, the general directors of almost all of the cooperatives undertaking the e-business expressed that since the e-business operation required to have professionals as well as more input, the effect of propaganda is often higher than the actual sale effect and it is hard for the cost to be in proportion to return. The trainees suggested that it is necessary to consider rationally the cooperatives’ development in e-business for agricultural products and avoid the e-business from becoming merely a show for the local government to develop agriculture.

In terms of HR cultivation and introduction, the trainees viewed that it is more urgent to introduce than to cultivate. Since the cultivation of human resources takes a long time and has a slow effect, it is hard, in a short period of time, to resolve the problem of human resource shortage with the cooperatives. It is suggested that the more specific supporting program may be formulated in terms of HR introduction.

To sum up, it is meaningful to formulate and publish the Guideline to support the development of the cooperative, while it is more crucial to promote the implementation of the new policy. In order to advance the policy landing, to enhance the cooperation of government departments as well as to target the key points and emphasize on resolving will be more practically significant. #

About MTCP2

The Medium-Term Cooperation Program Phase 2 (MTCP2), a five-year capacity building program supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the European Union (EU), has been implemented in 19 countries across three sub-regions—Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific—engaging 1,544 sub-national farmers organizations (FOs) with a total membership of around 22 million farmers. The funding support (total budget of $ 5 million for the whole duration of the project across 19 countries) serves as a catalytic fund that will allow FOs to enhance their capacity to be effective channels of economic services to farmers. The program has contributed to the formation of the strong national platform of FOs with improved capacity to engage in policy processes and mobilize resources from mainstream agricultural development programs like extension services, credit, and pre and post-harvest facilities. The program also helped in transforming farmers’ associations into commodity-based cooperatives to strengthen the role of small-scale farmers within an inclusive and sustainable value-chain. The program is being implemented by the consortium Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) and La Via Campesina (LVC).

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