On November 30, the Shandong Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau and the Provincial Department of Finance jointly held a provincial agricultural machinery purchase subsidy fund management symposium in Shanghe County, Jinan City. Chiefs of sections (stations) responsible for subsidy work from agricultural machinery and finance departments in eleven cities including Jinan, Zibo, Zaozhuang, Dongying, Yantai, Weihai, Rizhao, Laiwu, Dezhou, Liaocheng, and Heze, as well as county-level agricultural machinery and finance department officials responsible for subsidy work, attended the meeting. Deputy Director Han Shansheng of the Provincial Agricultural Machinery Bureau and Deputy Director Han Ruyue of the Provincial Department of Finance attended the meeting and delivered speeches respectively.
The symposium discussed reforming the management and settlement methods of agricultural machinery purchase subsidy funds, further improving the supervision mechanism for subsidy fund implementation. Full discussions were held on decentralizing subsidy funds to county-level settlement, establishing subsidy work performance evaluation methods, and improving the management measures for subsidy machinery dealers. Consensus was reached and unified understanding was achieved.
China produces 600-800 million tons of crop straw annually. Among them, North China produces 65 million tons of straw annually. Baodi and surrounding areas produce over 10 million tons of corn and cotton straw annually. However, this large amount of straw has not been comprehensively utilized. Large stacks of straw occupy vast areas of land, while simultaneously serving as habitats for crop diseases and pests, causing grain reduction and increased pesticide expenditure. Burning or discarding straw not only wastes valuable biological resources but also causes serious environmental pollution. The ubiquitous straw fires also cause significant losses to villagers. Conventional energy sources (coal, oil, natural gas) have non-renewable and unevenly distributed characteristics, and their combustion brings severe pollution and destruction to the ecological environment. Especially after the national "burning prohibition order" was issued, farmers had to discard large amounts of straw in ponds, ditches, rivers, and even around reservoirs, not only blocking farmland water conservancy facilities, but more terrifyingly, as the straw decays, it severely pollutes water bodies. These problems have become increasingly prominent with the rapid growth of the national economy, improvement of people's living standards, and increased demand for agricultural products and energy. Therefore, processing crop straw into pellet fuel can not only turn waste into treasure, realize returning straw ash to fields after fuel combustion, but also increase farmers' income, solve employment for a large number of farmers, reduce environmental pollution, protect the ecological environment, promote the virtuous cycle of agricultural industry, advance the process of sustainable agricultural development, contribute to ecological agriculture construction, and open up a new path for humans to develop clean bioenergy.
