Enhancing Cultivated Land Protection Together

Recently, the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of Cultivated Land, Enhancing the Quality of Cultivated Land, and Improving the Balance of Occupancy and Compensation" issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council proposed to implement the strategy of storing grain in land and technology, and to regard the protection of cultivated land as a systematic project. It insists on the "three-in-one" protection of the quantity, quality, and ecology of cultivated land, respects the laws, guides according to the situation, and acts according to local conditions for long-term efforts. It fully mobilizes the enthusiasm of various entities to protect cultivated land, enhances the productivity of cultivated land, steadily expands the agricultural production space, and firmly grasps the initiative in food security.

In recent years, through the continuous deepening of land system reform, promoting the efficient connection of land management systems with macro policies and regional development, the precision and utilization efficiency of land factor allocation in China have been improved. The land elements required for the implementation of new industrialization, new urbanization, and rural revitalization strategies have been effectively guaranteed, the development space of advantageous areas has been expanded, and the factor support for high-quality development has become more solid. While providing land element guarantees for high-quality development, a series of hard measures have been taken, such as strengthening the control of national territorial space and land use indicators, promoting the implementation of cultivated land protection and food security responsibility system assessment, improving the reform of cultivated land occupancy and compensation balance system, increasing the intensity of existing land revitalization and disposal, optimizing the spatial layout of cultivated land, and increasing investment in high-standard farmland construction. China has firmly maintained the red line of cultivated land protection, the quality and ecological protection level of cultivated land have steadily improved, the stability and resilience of the cultivated land system have continued to enhance, and the foundation of cultivated land resources that firmly grasps the initiative in food security has become more and more solid.

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At the same time, China's cultivated land protection still faces great pressure and challenges, and it is necessary to further strengthen mechanism empowerment, governance empowerment, and data empowerment, balance the relationship between short-term and long-term, local and overall, control and property rights, production and ecology, and effectively improve the level of cultivated land protection to promote the realization of multiple goals such as food security, increase in farmers' income, and sustainable use of cultivated land.

Strengthen mechanism empowerment. In the "three-in-one" protection of cultivated land quantity, quality, and ecology, the mechanism plays a fundamental, overall, and long-term role, acting on various entities through control and empowerment. A good mechanism will restrict actions that are not conducive to the protection of cultivated land and empower various entities to protect cultivated land, so that various entities that protect cultivated land do not suffer losses and benefit. In this way, it can promote the "external constraint - internal motivation" positive interaction of cultivated land protection and form a strong force for cultivated land protection. At present, the control and constraint function of the cultivated land protection mechanism is prominent, but there is room for improvement in stimulating the enthusiasm of various entities to protect cultivated land. The role of the effective market and the proactive government should be fully played, and the protection enthusiasm of various entities should be fully mobilized by improving the income guarantee mechanism for grain farmers, the interest compensation mechanism for cultivated land protection, and developing new industries and new business forms such as ecological agriculture, green agriculture, and shared agriculture with high-quality cultivated land, to promote the realization of the "three-in-one" protection value of cultivated land quantity, quality, and ecology.

Strengthen governance empowerment. To improve the quality and ecology of cultivated land, the support for high-standard farmland construction projects, concentrated and contiguous rectification projects of permanent basic farmland, large and medium-sized irrigation area projects, and fertilizer reduction and efficiency enhancement projects has been continuously increased, and the types of subsidies such as crop rotation and fallow subsidies, straw comprehensive utilization subsidies, and organic fertilizer return to field utilization subsidies have become more diversified. At the same time, a whole process quality management and performance management system for the whole chain of project establishment, implementation, acceptance, and maintenance has been established to strengthen the supervision of project engineering quality and the use effect of projects and subsidy funds. However, there are problems such as spatial displacement and poor time connection in the process of project implementation, which reduce the integration of project investment and affect the overall resource allocation effect. Overall governance should be strengthened, and a collaborative, linkage, and complementary mechanism across regions, systems, departments, and businesses should be improved to increase the spatial overlap and time connection of projects, and reduce the adverse impact of project fragmentation on the improvement of cultivated land quality and ecology.

Strengthen data empowerment. China has always attached importance to obtaining basic data and change data of cultivated land quantity, quality, and ecology through a combination of national censuses and annual change surveys. For example, the national land survey is carried out to obtain basic data on cultivated land quantity, and the annual land change survey is carried out to timely monitor the changes in cultivated land quantity; the national soil census is carried out, and the annual cultivated land quality change survey and evaluation, and comprehensive evaluation are continuously improved to grasp the basic data and change data of cultivated land quality. These data can provide a basis for governments at all levels to assess, adjust, and supervise cultivated land protection systems and policies, provide targets for cultivated land protection scientific and technological innovation, and provide key support for intelligent decision-making in agricultural production and management. However, due to the current cultivated land data being mainly management data, social data at the individual and enterprise level have not been well collected, and there are problems with inconsistent standards and low quality of existing data, which restricts the ability of various cultivated land protection entities to systematically use these data to create useful information. Therefore, a cultivated land data co-construction, co-governance, and sharing mechanism should be established, and advanced technologies such as information technology, digital technology, remote sensing technology, and generative artificial intelligence should be fully utilized to expand data sources, connect data standards, improve data quality, and strengthen data interaction and calculation, so that the collected data can form logical connections and provide a "smart brain" for the "three-in-one" protection of cultivated land quantity, quality, and ecology.