The Blue and White-dominated Legislative Yuan approved an increase in the old farmer's subsidy to 15,000 yuan. The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that annual expenditures will increase by 32 billion yuan compared with the government's version of 10,000 yuan. Former Agriculture Minister Chen Jizhong pointed out that if the old farmer's subsidy is increased to 15,000 yuan, it will expand the inequity between generations and occupations. Young and middle-aged farmers will be even more insecure. It will also be detrimental to the expansion of agricultural business scale, and will also severely damage the agricultural budget and policy flexibility.
The old farmer subsidy is one of the welfare guarantees for farmers in my country. Currently, there are 530,000 people receiving the old farmer subsidy. In January this year, the Political Yuan proposed to increase the old farmer subsidy from the current 8,110 yuan to 10,000 yuan. However, the Legislative Yuan has not yet passed it. It directly increased the old farmer subsidy to 15,000 yuan and relaxed the emission reduction. Chen Jizhong of Rich Standards, an authority in the field of agricultural economics, pointed out that the sudden increase in the veteran farmer subsidy to 15,000 yuan may seem to be beneficial to farmers, but in fact it will lead to three major problems: "unfavorable expansion of the scale of agricultural operations", "severe damage to agricultural budgets and policy flexibility", and "expansion of generational and occupational inequality".
Chen Jizhong further pointed out that in addition to the linkage between the old farmer subsidy and the agricultural insurance qualification, it will also be adjusted according to the price index every four years, and will gradually increase from 15,000 yuan in the future. Because the agricultural insurance qualification requires holding at least 1 point of farmland, high subsidies will cause those who are actually no longer engaged in farming to continue to hold 1 point. Agricultural land retains agricultural insurance qualifications, unfavorable agricultural land is integrated and the scale of operation is expanded. Furthermore, after the old farmer's allowance is increased, among the legal obligations of the Ministry of Agriculture every year, the old farmer's allowance expenditure will exceed half of the total budgetary funds, which will crowd out other welfare measures and compress other agricultural governance space.
Chen Jizhong further pointed out that if only old farmers are taken care of, it will affect the opportunity to improve the security of young and middle-aged farmers. At present, young and middle-aged farmers are already facing high production costs, difficulties in obtaining farmland, and climate risks, and they need more government support. A substantial increase in old farmers' subsidies will be more detrimental to my country's current agricultural production. Currently, farmers' retirement benefits are protected through dual-track retirement savings funds and old farmer subsidies.
Chen Jizhong emphasized that he absolutely supports increasing agricultural budget and investment, but the premise is that it must be used to truly contribute to the sustainable development of agriculture. If the additional 32 billion yuan each year can be used to encourage farmers to rent out their farmland, a subsidy of 2,000 yuan will be provided every month, combined with the original farmer subsidies and Farmers will receive more than 15,000 yuan from the rural retirement savings fund. In addition, we must comprehensively expand green environmental benefits for farmland, establish an agricultural disaster retirement security fund, invest in agricultural insurance premium subsidies, irrigation facilities, cold chain logistics, etc., to substantially enhance agricultural competitiveness and resilience.
