In 2016,faced with complicated, grim domestic and international economic situation, the CPC Central Committee and State Council made active exploration in transformation of development mode, adjusting development structure and promoting reform, precisely grasped the trends of agro-product supply-demand structural imbalance, unreasonable factors allocation, great resources and environment pressure, and sluggish income growth for farmers, regarded reform as fundamental power, kept a foothold on national condition and agricultural condition, met the demands of the time, reinforced the efforts in agricultural reform, policy support, science and technology driving, sped up the establishment of new-type agricultural operation system featured by integration, professionalism, systematization and socialization, further improved agricultural support and protection system, and continuously enhanced agriculture development, benefited rural areas, and boost farmers' income.
The policy efforts in strengthening agriculture, benefiting agriculture, and boosting farmers' income were constantly enhanced. In 2016 , transfer payment co-managed by MoA and Ministry of Finance reached 253.1 billion yuan, increasing by 2.8 billion yuan from 2015. Among that, agricultural support and protection subsidy reached 144.24 billion yuan, agricultural machinery purchase subsidy reached 23.75 billion yuan, modern agriculture production and development fund reached 5.03 billion yuan, agricultural technology promotion and service subsidy reached 15.35 billion yuan, agricultural resource and ecological protection subsidy reached 23.42 billion yuan, animal epidemic prevention fund reached 6.08 billion yuan, confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting right subsidy reached 6 billion yuan, agricultural production disaster relief fund reached 3.49 billion yuan, and fishery diesel subsidy reached 24.02 billion yuan.
Rural basic operation system was further consolidated and improved. In 2016, confirmation, registration and certification of rural land contracting right continued to expand whole-province pilot range, in 2014, the MoA selected Shandong, Sichuan and Anhui provinces, in 2015, it selected Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Gansu, Ningxia, Jilin, Guizhou, Henan provinces (regions), on basis of that, it selected 10 provinces including Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hainan, Yunnan and Shaanxi to launch whole-province pilot program, with the total whole-province pilot provinces reaching 22. At the end of 2016,the pilot range was extended to 2 582 counties (cities or districts), 30 000 towns, 512 000 administrative villages, completing an measured area of 83.333 3 million hectares, and a right-confirmed area of 56.666 7 million hectares. Comprehensively carried out investigation and promotion of national rural collective "sanzi" (fund, assets and resources) management demonstration counties, sped up rural collective asset supervision and management platform construction, standardized rural financial management work, and laid a solid foundation for safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of rural collective economic organizations and the general farmers, and promoting rural social harmony and stability.
Agricultural scale operation rapidly developed. On the premise of adhering to land collective ownership, the MoA realized the separation of the rights of owning, contracting and management, guided the orderly transfer of land management rights, actively cultivated new-type agricultural management subjects, developed multiple forms of agricultural moderately scale operation, and promoted the innovation in rural land system and agricultural management system. Impacted by multiple factors including the continuous increase in labor transfer, good prospect of high-quality high-efficiency agricultural development, and powerful government support from each region, rural land transfer was obviously sped up, the mechanism of standardized, orderly transfer of farmers' contracted land was gradually improved, scale operation was expedited, concentrated large-scale planting and concentrated, scale operation were realized, which saved production cost and promoted agricultural development and farmers' income increase. At the end of 2016, more than 3.5 million households nationwide possess an operation scale above 3.33 hectares, and the proportion of moderately scale operation area in multiple forms such as land transfer and production trusteeship exceeded 30 percent.
Rural comprehensive reform deeply promoted. Centering on aspects including cultivating new-type management subjects, improving interest-connection mechanism among various management subjects, and innovating agricultural socialized service approach, the MoA launched exploration, and strove to build modern agricultural management system. Centering on innovating rural contracted land right confirmation, registration and certification methods, improving contracted land management right power and function, standardizing land transfer management, and strove to improve rural land management system. Centering on improving rural financial service system, expanding the range of effective mortgaged property, setting up rural credit system, carrying out internal credit cooperation for farmers cooperatives, and improving agricultural insurance system, among others, the MoA carried out exploration and strove to build modern agricultural financial system. Centered on aspects including rural collective assets property quantification, new-type collective economy organization, operation and management, and rural property rights transfer and trading, the MoA carried out exploration and strove to deepen the systematic reform for rural collective property rights. Centering on aspects including unifying urban and rural development plans, pushing forward the household registration system reform, promoting the equalization of urban and rural public service, setting up the mechanism of “using industry to promote the development of agriculture”,and improving agricultural support and protection system, the MoA carried out exploration and strove to improve the system and mechanism of urban-rural development integration. Centering on improving dynamic villager self-governance system and democratic decision making mechanism, the MoA carried out exploration and strove to improve rural governance mechanism.
Seed industry system reform gradually deepened. In 2016, the MoA kept a foothold on providing service for agricultural supply-side structural reform, continued to deepen seed industry system, sped up the construction of national-level breeding bases and regional bases, deeply promoted seed industry talent development and achievement rights reform, sped up species innovation, made new breakthrough in tackling the issue of developing four major crops' fine varieties, implemented the Seed Law, enhance management and service, and modern seed industry development presented good momentum.
Promoted the integrated development of rural primary, secondary and tertiary development. The MoA enacted relevant promotion work plan, guide each region to actively explore and practice, centering on rural industrial integration development, co-implemented “hundred counties thousand towns ten thousand villages” pilot project, and pushed forward the in-depth implementation of various tasks of industrial integration development. With the gradual implementation of policies and measures, rural industrial integration development was tremendously rejuvenated, with effects initially shown, presenting a pattern of multiple-modes promotion, multiple subjects participation, multiple mechanism connection, multiple factors powering, and multiple business activities creating.
The adjustment and control mechanism for agro-product market was further improved. In 2016, the MoA continued to implement minimum purchasing price policy for rice and wheat, as the price kept at the level of the year before. In northeast China, it carried market-oriented purchasing and subsidy mechanism for corn, which promoted the coordinated development of upper and lower corn industrial chain links. Continued to carry out target price reform pilot for Xinjiang cotton and Northeast and Inner Mongolia soybean, as the target price for Xinjiang cotton was set at 18 600 yuan per ton, reduced by 500 yuan from the year before, and the target price for Northeast and Inner Mongolia soybean was set at 4 800 yuan per ton, which was the same level from the year before. Established agro-product market supervision and early warning mechanism, held agricultural outlook conference, released agroproduct market supply and demand information, and further enhanced supervision, early warning and releasing of agricultural information.
The reform and construction of agricultural technology generalization system gained positive achievements. Innovated agricultural technology generalization motivation me-chanism, studied and raised the reform thinking of combined public generalization and operating service, launched and implemented new-type professional farmers cultivation project, explored and set up cultivation system, carried out demonstration cultivation, and set up and improved training system. As of 2016, demonstration range expanded to eight whole provinces, 30 whole cities and 800 demonstration counties. Initially formed the new-type professional farmers training system framework, featured by trinity of educational training, identification management, and policy support, the coordination of production and management type, professional skill type, and social service type, and cut-through training of primary level, intermediate level and advanced level, explored and formed typical models for new-type professional farmers cultivation, and laid sold foundation for comprehensively implementing new-type professional farmers cultivation project and vigorously training new-type professional farmers.
Migrant workers national public service system gradually improved. Each region further conducted the service work for migrant workers under new circumstances, and laid solid foundation for migrant workers' gradual integration into towns and cities, and realizing the urbanization of migrant workers. Focused on stabilizing and expanding the employment and starting up of migrant workers, constantly improved the labor rights and interests protection level for migrant workers, constantly reinforced efforts in migrant workers training, promoted social integration, and further enhanced the leadership for migrant workers work. Under the situation, in 2016, the size of migrant workers nationwide continued to expand, as the total number reached 281.71 million, increasing by 4.24 million and by 1.5 percent, which was 0.2 percentage point higher than the year before.
Agricultural laws and regulations further improved. Centering on the goal and task of prospering according to law, the MoA deeply promoted agricultural legal system construction, further improved agricultural laws and regulations, further lifted agricultural law enforcement level, further enhanced agricultural popularized law education, and achieved new progress in agricultural law-based administration.