The Central Economic Work Conference held from December 11 to 12 stressed the need to establish a concept of agriculture and food, and to build agriculture into a modern industry. The high-quality development of agriculture is the key to the high-quality development of China's economy, and the development of green agriculture is an effective way to drive the high-quality development of agriculture. Due to the late start and short time of the development of green agriculture in the mainland, the development of green agriculture still lags behind the major agricultural countries, and a large amount of financial support is urgently needed to accelerate the development process of green agriculture. In this issue of Theoretical Research, the research team of the Heilongjiang Branch of the People's Bank of China is invited to share the research results of their research on financial support for the development of green agriculture.
It is recommended to extend the development chain of green agriculture industry, enhance the value of green agricultural products, enhance the guiding role of policy-based finance, and clarify the conditions for credit support for green agricultural projects, so as to effectively enhance financial support for green agriculture and help realize the green transformation of agricultural production, emission reduction and efficiency.
The connotation and extension of green agriculture
In 2016, the term "green agricultural development" was first put forward in the "Several Opinions on Implementing the New Concept of Development and Accelerating Agricultural Modernization to Achieve the Goal of Achieving a Comprehensive Well-off", and the mainland officially started to promote the construction of green agricultural development. In 2019, the National Development and Reform Commission and other seven departments researched and formulated the "Green Industry Guidance Catalogue (2019 Edition)", which included 11 industries such as modern seed industry and green organic agriculture into "ecological agriculture" as the connotation scope of agricultural green development, and increased the number of items to 14 in the new draft for comments in 2023 (see Table 1).
Table 1: Comparison between the 2019 and 2023 editions of the Green Industry Guidance Catalogue for ecological agriculture
| Agroecology (2019 Edition) | Ecological Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishery (2023 Draft for Solicitation of Comments) |
| Modern agricultural seed industry and protection of animal and plant germplasm resources | Modern breeding and seedling |
| Green organic farming | Conservation of germplasm resources |
| Construction and operation of crop planting reserves and protected areas | Green agricultural production |
| Forest resources cultivation industry | Green, organic certified agriculture |
| Understory planting and understory breeding industry | Construction and operation of crop planting reserves and protected areas |
| Carbon sequestration forests, tree planting and grass planting, and forest seedlings and flowers | Green prevention and control of crop diseases and pests |
| Forestry Genetic Resources Conservation | Recreational agriculture and rural tourism |
| Green animal husbandry | Agro-ecosystem protection and restoration of animal husbandry |
| Green fisheries | Cultivation of forest resources |
| Forest recreation and health care industry | Forestry Genetic Resources Conservation |
| Green prevention and control of crop diseases and pests | Understory planting and breeding and understory collection |
| Forest recreation and wellness | |
| Green animal husbandry | |
| Green fisheries |
To sum up, this paper argues that the concept of green agriculture is an agricultural production system that makes full use of science and technology, advanced agricultural equipment and development concepts, and takes into account the three major goals and principles of "reducing carbon emissions, increasing food production, and realizing rural revitalization" to achieve single or multiple benefits.
The development process of green agriculture in mainland China
(1) Agricultural carbon emissions in mainland China
Fig. 1 Composition of carbon emissions in mainland China in 2014
Fig. 2 Composition of agricultural carbon emissions in mainland China in 2014
The World Resources Institute updated that the total carbon emissions of the mainland in 2020 were still 12.3 billion tons of CO2e, of which the agricultural sector emitted 650 million tons of CO2e, accounting for 5.1% of the total emissions of the mainland, down 1.6% from 2014, 7.6 percentage points lower than the global average, and accounting for 11.1% of the global agricultural carbon emissions. On the whole, although the proportion of agricultural carbon emissions in mainland China is still relatively high in the world, the proportion of agricultural carbon emissions shows a significant downward trend, and the carbon emissions per unit of agricultural GDP and per capita agricultural population are lower than those of the United States (see Table 2).
Table 2: Comparison of agricultural carbon emissions between China and the United States in 2014
| name | China | United States |
| Population (100 million people) | 13.77 | 3.18 |
| GDP (trillion yuan) | 64.36 | 107.13 |
| GDP per capita (10,000 yuan) | 4.67 | 33.63 |
| Agricultural GDP (trillion yuan) | 5.83 | 1.25 |
| Pure agricultural population (100 million people) | 7.00 | 0.06 |
| Proportion of agricultural GDP (%) | 4.10 | 1.17 |
| Carbon emissions per capita (tonnes CO2e/person) | 8.93 | 21.54 |
| Carbon emissions (tonnes CO2e) | 123.01 | 68.50 |
| 农业碳排放（亿吨CO2e） | 8.28 | 6.99 |
| Proportion of agricultural carbon emissions (%) | 6.70 | 10.21 |
| Carbon emission intensity per unit of GDP (tons CO2e/10,000 yuan) | 1.91 | 0.64 |
| Carbon emission intensity per unit of agricultural GDP (tons CO2e/10,000 yuan) | 1.42 | 5.58 |
| Carbon emissions per capita of agricultural population (tonnes CO2e/person) | 0.96 | 170.17 |
Source: National Bureau of Statistics of the People's Republic of China website and USDA website.
(2) The policy system and effectiveness of the development of green agriculture in the mainland
The mainland government has always attached great importance to the development of green agriculture, and in response to the actual needs of green agricultural development, it has successively introduced policies and measures to achieve emission reduction and carbon sequestration under the premise of ensuring food security and effective supply, creating a good policy environment for the development of green agriculture.
The first is to strengthen emission reduction and carbon sequestration in the field of agricultural planting.
The second is to improve the policy system for reducing pollution and carbon emissions in animal husbandry.
The third is to carry out the systematic construction of grassland carbon sequestration and sequestration.
Under the guidance of continuous policies, the development of green agriculture in mainland China has initially established a strategy, policy and technical system for the green and low-carbon transformation of agriculture and rural areas.
Domestic and foreign financial support for the development model of green agriculture
(1) Heilongjiang Province's financial support for the development of green agriculture
Heilongjiang Province, as the "ballast stone" of national food security, has carried out a number of practical explorations in financial support for the development of green agriculture. The first is to guide financial support for green agriculture to expand from a single production and planting end to the whole industrial chain. The second is to establish a docking mechanism between banks and green agriculture projects. The third is to smooth the information communication channels between financial institutions and green agricultural entities.
(2) Foreign financial support for the development model of green agriculture
First, the government, international organizations and financial institutions carry out mixed financing to support the sustainable development of agriculture.
Second, policy guidance credit funds are targeted to support the development of low-carbon agriculture.
The third is to explore the use of carbon sinks to repay credit funds.
Fourth, policy guarantees to support the development of green agriculture.
Fifth, financial technology strengthens the digital financial platform for agriculture.
Analysis of the current situation of financial support for the development of green agriculture
(1) The demand for green agricultural credit needs to enhance the willingness of agricultural producers to transform green
The development of green agriculture in the mainland started late, and the current agriculture in the mainland is still in the development stage of "high input, high output, and high emission", and it takes only 30 years for agricultural carbon to peak to carbon neutrality, which is far lower than the buffer time of 50 to 70 years in Europe and the United States.
(2) The matching degree between credit services and the development needs of green agriculture needs to be strengthened
Technological innovation and low-carbon transformation of agricultural systems will take a long timeframe. At present, most of the credit funds supporting agriculture in mainland China are mainly short-term credit funds, which cannot meet the cyclical needs of green agricultural development. The development of green agriculture requires the extensive involvement of all kinds of capital, and innovative financial support programs based on the risk and return characteristics of various types of funds such as fiscal, developmental, and commercial.
(3) The development of green agricultural carbon sink function needs to be improved
At present, the work of agricultural carbon sequestration has just started, and the market-oriented incentive mechanism has not yet been formed, and it is difficult to directly transform the positive externalities of carbon emission reduction in agricultural planting into economic benefits.
Countermeasures and suggestions
(1) Enhance the economic benefits of green agriculture and stimulate the demand for green transformation credit for agricultural production entities
The first is to establish a complete green agriculture industry chain.
Second, the policy guides green agricultural products to be different from other agricultural products.
The third is to strengthen the application of digital technology in the field of green agriculture.
Fourth, expand the downstream demand for green agricultural products.
(2) Improve the policy system of financial support for green agriculture
The first is to strengthen cooperation with international institutions and enrich financing channels for green and low-carbon agricultural projects.
Second, banking institutions should take the initiative to increase green finance innovation and R&D, and launch a series of green agricultural credit products according to local conditions.
The third is to refine the pre-management system for green agriculture projects and clarify the access conditions for credit funds.
Fourth, the establishment of provincial or municipal special guarantee funds, "three rural", small and medium-sized enterprises green development fund, give full play to the leverage of financial funds, and support the green development of "three rural" and small and micro enterprises.
(3) Accelerate the construction of a green agricultural carbon sink system
First, by strengthening financial support, subsidy reduction and exemption and other policy means, effectively stimulate market vitality, and encourage more enterprises, new agricultural business entities and farmers to actively promote the development of agricultural carbon sinks.
The second is to strengthen the publicity of the value of agricultural carbon sink products, and continuously improve the public's awareness and attention to agricultural carbon sinks.
Third, financial institutions should actively participate in and support the construction of the mainland carbon trading market and water rights trading market.
Source: Financial Times Client Author: People's Bank of China Heilongjiang Branch Research Group Editor: Xie Jingjing Duan Jiaxi E-mail: [email protected]