Poverty Alleviation of Ministry of Agriculture

　　【National Forum on Agricultural Work in Tibet and Xinjiang】There are many poor areas in Tibet Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, of which Tibet Autonomous Region and three prefectures in southern area of Xinjiang are newly identified contiguous poor areas with special difficulties. In order to better implement the spirit of central meeting, in August and September 2010, the Ministry of Agriculture respectively held the National Forum on Agricultural Work in Tibet and National Forum on Agricultural Work in Xinjiang to summarize the work done in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan" period and research and determine the development idea and priorities in the "12th Five-Year Plan" period. During that period, it held the project supplies handover ceremony for supporting the agriculture in Tibet and Xinjiang, purchased 104 science and technology service vehicles for the two places and allocated 85 million Yuan for agricultural technology extension and system building. The ministry organized the subordinate institutions to reach agreement for cooperation of more than 30 projects with Tibet and Xinjiang, covering relevant technological and human resource projects; the aiding provincial and municipal agricultural sectors signed 60 project cooperation agreements worth nearly 1 billion Yuan with the agricultural sectors of Tibet and Xinjiang. During the meeting, through producing special propaganda videos, printing continuous reports and issuing publicity pictures albums, they comprehensively reported the development achievements of farming and animal husbandry and the agricultural work in Tibet. After the meeting, they formulated the "Opinions of the Ministry of Agriculture on Implementing the Spirit of the Fifth Central Working Conference on Tibet to Promote the Agricultural Support for Tibet in the New Era" and the "Opinions of the Ministry of Agriculture on Implementing the Spirit of the Central Working Conference on Xinjiang to Promote the Agricultural Support for Xinjiang in the New Era" and reported to the CPC Central Committee and the State Council relevant information of the meeting, which was fully affirmed by Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin and other central leaders as well as relevant parties of Tibet and Xinjiang.

　　【Field research and planning development for poverty alleviation】Facing the new situation of and new problems in agricultural and rural development of impoverished areas, the Ministry of Agriculture conducted in-depth investigations and studies and gave more instructions to help form development ideas. Over the past year, it sent more than ten ministerial leaders and over 90 departmental cadres to carry out field research in the aided regions, Xinjiang, Tibet and Bijie of Guizhou; organized studies on the agricultural product quality safety supervision system in Xinjiang, the "three rural" issues in western border areas and the basic farming project summary and assessment; completed the formulation of the "Planning for Construction of Livestock Pens in Cold Pastoral Areas of Tibet", "Development Planning for the Comprehensive Utilization of Straw in Tibet", "Planning for the Establishment of Technology Support System for Agricultural and Animal Husbandry in Tibet" and "Planning for the Construction of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation System for Agricultural and Animal Husbandry in Tibet", and guided Xinjiang and Tibet to develop the "Planning for Development of Fishery Industry in Xinjiang in the ‘12th Five-Year Plan’ Period", "Planning for Development of Fishery Industry in Bositeng Lake" and "Planning for Protective Development and Utilization of Naked Carp in Shenzha of Tibet"; organized chief experts of modern agricultural technology system to visit Bijie of Guizhou Province for three times to give instructions on planning formulation, new variety cultivation, breeding technology upgrading and disease prevention and control in potato, corn, beef cattle, sheep, grass and other industries; Sent technical experts to help Weining County of Guizhou Province prepare development planning for potato, vegetable, fruit and other agricultural industries; guided 14 key counties to clarify the functional orientation of competitive breeding areas for export and further promoted the competitive featured aquaculture in impoverished areas. In addition, the ministry participated in the whole process of drafting and revisal of the "Outline for Poverty Alleviation and Development of China's Rural Areas (2011-2020)".

　　【Pro-poor policies】 The Ministry of Agriculture, according to actual needs of impoverished areas, claimed to put stress on impoverished areas in the state’s farming-benefit policies. First, fine seed subsidy. The Ministry of Agriculture realized for the first time the coverage of fine seed subsidy for wheat, maize and cotton across China and coverage of fine seed subsidy for soybean in the northeast (including Inner Mongolia), and key counties for national poverty alleviation and development got subsidy of 15 Yuan/Mu for mid-late rice and cotton and 10 Yuan/Mu for other plants, which promoted the issuance of the find seed subsidy for barley, yak and potatoes in Tibet and the Tibetan areas in four provinces. Secondly, agricultural machinery purchase subsidy. A total of 58.4 million Yuan of subsidy was issued for the impoverished areas involved in fixed-point poverty alleviation, covering all key counties for poverty alleviation and development. Thirdly, soil testing and formulated fertilization projects. The average subsidy for each key county was 300,000-50,000 Yuan. It promoted the implementation of soil testing and formulated fertilization technology in villages and improved farmers’ scientific fertilization level. Fourth, as for agricultural standardization, 2 million Yuan of central government funds was allocated to four key counties to support the construction of national demonstration counties of agricultural standardization and the construction of 15 standardized green food raw material bases and 8 organic agricultural demonstration bases in impoverished areas. Fifth, for agricultural law enforcement, 6.6 million Yuan of central government funds was allocated for 44 key counties to construct demonstration projects for agricultural law enforcement, which standardized the agricultural law enforcement actions and improved the level of law enforcement of the project construction units.

　　【Poverty alleviation projects】 The Ministry of Agriculture allocated central government funds of 725 million Yuan for basic agricultural construction in key counties for poverty alleviation and development, covering plant protection projects, fine species projects in cultivation industry, animal and plant protection, county immune system, farm produce quality inspection system construction and market information service system, etc, which effectively promoted the improvement of agricultural infrastructure and comprehensive production capacity. Based on positive role of the rich agricultural resources in poor areas in helping farmers increasing income, combined with the implementation of the “Regional Layout Planning of Competitive Agricultural Products in China (2008-2015)” and the “Regional Layout Planning of Featured Agricultural Products (2006-2015)”, it arranged 50 demonstration comprehensive agricultural development projects in key counties for national poverty alleviation and development including “fine seed breeding for development of competitive cultivation” with central government investment of 72.3 million Yuan. Meanwhile, 556 million Yuan was allocated for the regions covered by fixed-point poverty alleviation, Xinjiang, Tibet and Bijie of Guizhou Province, which supported the construction of biogas digesters for 232,300 rural households, 20 large and medium-sized biogas projects, 209 small biogas projects and 1,441 rural service stations. 290 million Yuan was issued to support national agricultural reclamation, up 4.16% over 2009. 270 poverty relief projects were implemented in 177 farms, including 189 infrastructure construction projects and 81 production projects.

　　【Poverty alleviation by science and technology】Combined with grassroots agricultural technology extension system reform and the construction of demonstrative counties and infrastructure of township extension agencies, the Ministry of Agriculture gave more instructions on the work in more than 60 national key counties for poverty alleviation and development to enhance the public service capacity of the grassroots agricultural technology extension system in impoverished areas; Actively organized the implementation of 948 research projects of modern agricultural and industrial technology system and public service sectors (agriculture) and the pilot projects of infrastructure construction of township agricultural technology extension agencies to promote the research, development and promotion of key appropriate technologies for agricultural production in Xinjiang and Tibet; Guided the national key counties for poverty alleviation and development to carry out disaster relief for harvest by science and technology and vigorously promoted efficient high-yield quality production of major crops in key counties, low-cost high-quality organic soil cultivation, safe and effective pest prevention and control, eco-efficient use of water, soil and fertilizer, etc; Coordinated six provinces (municipalities) including  Jiangsu and Guangdong to send 15 technical experts to Tibet to promote the smooth implementation of solid testing and formula fertilizing work, helped Xinjiang and Tibet to implement Phase I of “Jinnong” Project; and cooperated with scientific research institutions in Xinjiang and Tibet to carry out resource collection, new species introduction and pest control technique research and extension. It also held annual agricultural technology promotion and docking activities to help solve technical problems in grain and oil processing, fruit and vegetable processing and animal products processing in Xinjiang, and developed solar fruit and vegetable drying technology, technique and equipment suited to the conditions of Xinjiang and other northwest areas.

　　【Poverty alleviation by market】The Ministry of Agriculture conscientiously implemented the "introducing" and "going out" agricultural strategy, making use of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture of Shanghai Cooperation Organization to arrange bilateral talks for agriculture ministers of China and Kazakhstan and guide Xinjiang to carry out market survey on farm produce of Central Asian countries and pest control in border areas of China and Kazakhstan as well as the construction of China- Kazakhstan agricultural cooperation demonstration park to promote the establishment of "green channel" for agricultural customs clearance in Sino-Kazakh border regions. It helped Xinjiang to hold product promotion conferences in Beijing, Shanghai and Fuzhou and the turnover in Beijing matchmaking meeting alone reached 15.88 billion Yuan. It organized large-scale agricultural processing enterprises and wholesale markets in mainland to sign long-term purchase agreements with local suppliers of Xinjiang; organized Carrefour (China) Foundation for Food Safety to hold in Xinjiang the trainings and discussions on “convergence of farmers and supermarkets” so that the products of farmers’ cooperatives in Xinjiang can be directly supplied to Carrefour supermarket; provided long-term free link of "Town of Citrus in China" (China Xiangxi Orange Network) on prominent position of special columns such as "one-stop national network of rural supply and demand information" at the website of the Ministry of Agriculture; organized 30 agricultural product wholesale markets nationwide and 38 dealers to sign sales agreements in Xiangxi of Hunan Province; broadcasted public service advertisements on Aid to Xinjiang and Aid to Tibet for free in the prime time in "Agricultural Economics Everyday" and "Life 567" of CCTV-7; helped Xinjiang Xinjiang Autonomous Region Government to hold high-level forums on fruits and forests of Xinjiang and launched the "Xinjiang Awareness Week" to make propaganda for agricultural products with Xinjiang’s characteristics; provided some recording equipment for Tibet Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Department to support the advertisements, production promotion and brand building of key agricultural industrialization leading enterprises of Tibet; and actively coordinated high-quality agricultural production enterprises and products in Bijie of Guizhou to participate in the Ninth China International Agricultural Products Fair.

　　【Poverty alleviation by ecological construction】The Ministry of Agriculture invested a total of 1.575 billion Yuan for the ecological protection and construction projects in Xinjiang and Tibet, involving settlement of nomadic pastoralists, returning pasturing area to grassland, ecological security protection and construction, ecological compensation, rat and pest control and fireproofing material warehouses (stations) on grasslands, etc, covering 36.1 million mu of rails, 14.55 million mu of returned grassland, rat and pest control in 33.98 million mu of grassland, four fireproofing material warehouses (stations) on grasslands, fireproofing isolation strip of 12.15 kilometers on border grassland and subsidies for 16,000 resettled pasturing households. It carried out in Xinjiang the monitoring of grassland productivity and effectiveness of the projects of returning pasturing area to grassland, guided Tibet to found livestock and poultry genetic resources committee, helped Tibet develop plans for the construction of goat, Tibetan pig and chicken protection farms and protective zones and carry out Tibetan sheep germplasm characteristic Evaluation; actively supported Xinjiang and Tibet to carry out general survey on agricultural pollution sources, wild plant resources survey and environmental monitoring of agricultural origin; provided more than 100 million offspring seeds for  Xinjiang to support the construction of aquatic resource conservation base in border water area of Xinjiang and Nature Reserve of special fishes in Irtysh River; and launched protective farming project construction in 93 key counties for poverty alleviation and development to improve the agricultural production environment of poverty-stricken counties.

　　【Poverty alleviation by talents】Through “sunshine project of rural labor transfer”, the Ministry of Agriculture organized trainings for 80,000 farmers in Xinjiang and Tibet and 13,400 farmers in Bijie of Guizhou Province, and held trainings of rural practical talents for 650 people in the aided regions, Xinjiang, Tibet and Bijie of Guizhou. It actively participated in the poverty alleviation by science and technology in Henan, Hunan and Zhejiang Province, held crop growing technical trainings in poor areas and the trainings for national registered organic food inspectors, township cadres, township enterprises’ management personnel and principals of county-level quality control stations in the areas covered by fixed-point poverty alleviation; organized green food inspectors and supervisors of impoverished areas to attend for free the trainings; train pollution-free agricultural product inspectors, agricultural product geographical indication inspectors and principals of county agricultural product quality inspection stations for Xinjiang and Tibet; organized the technical trainings for construction and management of farmer cooperatives and biogas management, maintenance and utilization in Bijie of Guizhou and rural practical talent trainings in Weining County and, through China’s Maternal and Child Nutrition and Food Safety Project of UN Millennium Development Fund and Sino-Germany agriculture biodiversity conservation project, it trained agricultural management personnel and farmers in 8 national key counties for poverty alleviation and development. According to incomplete statistics, the Ministry of Agriculture has organized more than 100 trainings, seminars, technical services and study tours for the aided regions, Tibet and Xinjiang.

　　【Poverty alleviation by sending cadres】The 8th batch of six cadres, the 6th batch of five cadres and the 5th batch of four cadres sent by the Ministry of Agriculture are still working in the poor areas, Xinjiang and Tibet. According to the unified deployment of the Organization Department of the Central Committee, the Ministry of Agriculture completed the rotation of the fifth and sixth batch of cadres and sent five cadres to work in Tibet Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry and Tibet Academy of Agricultural Sciences and four members of "Doctor Service Group" to work in Xinjiang and Tibet. In accordance with the arrangements of the Central Government on anti-poverty work in Tibetan areas of Qinghai Province, it sent two comrades to act as cadres of Tibetan areas in Qinghai Province and sent two cadres to work in Bijie of Guizhou. Meanwhile, it actively accepted various kinds of talents from the poor areas, Xinjiang, Tibet and Bijie of Guizhou to serve as its staffs for practice and received a total of 15 party and government leaders and technical cadres and 4 visiting scholars of “Western Light” from Xinjiang and Tibet. To further increase the intensity of poverty reduction by cadres, the Ministry of Agriculture extended the service term of sending cadres to two years and added one comrade to serve as leader in Weining County of Guizhou Province.

　　【Multi-channel poverty alleviation】 The Ministry of Agriculture mobilized various forces to address actual problems of impoverished regions by various channels. It remitted green food certification costs of 270,000 Yuan, symbol use fee of 850,000 Yuan and organic food certification fee of about 500,000 Yuan of key national counties for poverty alleviation and development. Combine with Sino-German cooperation projects, it provided for free 3,500 high-quality German Simmental frozen semens for Xinjiang, donated 20 "Datong yaks" and typical science and technology works compiled and published in recent years to Tibet Academy of Agricultural Sciences; exempted the cost of biological and pharmaceutical testing for Tibet Veterinary Drug Supervision Office; carried out the activity of "becoming rich by scientific farming" jointly with Yangsimiao Village’s Party Committee of Yezhou Town, Jianshi County, Enshi Prefecture of Hubei Province, donated popular science books on rural epidemic prevention knowledge, general knowledge on safe use of medicines and scientific pig breeding as well as sterilization drugs to farmers, and donated 5,000 Yuan of construction funds. It donated to Xinjiang and Tibet minority language practical skills VCD, practical agricultural technological books and multimedia agricultural technology resource library; donated to construct 15 community libraries jointly with Tibetan Publishing Bureau, cooperated with Xinjiang Department of Agriculture to set up Uighur Editing Office of China Agricultural Press and translated and published nine types of Uighur agricultural books. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture was also active in donating money and materials and delivering books and newspapers to impoverished areas, built pairing-off relationship with poor areas for development, subsidized poor children out of school, etc; the money and materials it donated to poor areas amounted to 450,000 Yuan and it subsidized a total of 120 poor students.