BEIJING- China’s Finance Ministry on Tuesday announced the nationwide implementation of full-cost insurance and planting income insurance policies for rice, wheat and corn, as part of a food security drive to encourage planting of staple grains.
The policy is aimed at improving the level of agricultural insurance protection, stabilizing farmers’ income, supporting the revitalization of rural areas and safeguarding food security, according to a notice released with the Agriculture Ministry and the State Administration of Financial Supervision.
The step up in farmer protection comes as the world’s largest agriculture producer and buyer, which commonly faces crop-damaging natural disasters, pursues food self-sufficiency and lower dependence on imports.
In April, China lost 379,500 hectares of crops to floods, droughts, sandstorms, earthquakes, forest fires, and freezing temperatures that caused direct economic losses of 14.81 billion yuan ($2.05 billion), the Emergency Management Ministry said last week.
The full cost insurance covers income losses from major natural disasters, pests and diseases, accidents, wild animal damage and other risks, while the planting income insurance covers losses caused by fluctuations in agricultural product prices and output.
In line with Beijing’s goal to consolidate the country’s fragmented and predominantly smallholder-owned farms, the policy, while including small and moderate-sized farmers, will focus on “the leading role” of agriculture business entities.
The policy permits village collectives to organize small farmers into taking out collective insurance policies and pay out benefits to their households.
The notice, which was released on Tuesday, will be backdated to apply from Jan. 1, 2024, and protects all farmers and organizations involved in agricultural production.
Meanwhile, China’s breakneck build-out of solar power, fueled by rock-bottom equipment prices and policy support, is slowing as grid bottlenecks pile up, market reforms increase uncertainty for generators, and the best rooftop space runs short.
Last year, China expanded its solar fleet by 55 percent . The momentum continued through the first two months of 2024, but in March new solar build fell 32 percent year-on-year to the lowest level in 16 months, official data and Reuters calculations show.
The country’s solar power expansion is slowing due to tighter curbs on supplying excess power from rooftop solar into the grid and changes in electricity pricing that are denting the economics of new solar projects.
Forecasts show China’s solar build this year will be heavily outpaced by growth in its photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing capacity, raising the prospect the country will export more solar panels despite a trade backlash in Europe and the US
The main factor slowing the expansion of distributed solar – installations built near the point of use, mostly on rooftops – is that there is not enough storage or transmission capacity to soak up the excess power generated when the sun is shining.
