BEIJING, March 10 (China News Service) — Farmland protection is a matter of "national importance." This year's government work report proposed to "strictly guard the red line of farmland and improve the system of farmland occupation and compensation balance" and to "always keep the rice bowl firmly in our own hands." How can this be implemented at the action level? During the National Two Sessions, Xing Zhihong, a deputy to the National People's Congress and Party Secretary and Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Natural Resources, said in an exclusive interview with China News Service that farmland protection must shift from end-of-pipe governance to front-end prevention, and the key lies in weaving a tight dragnet of "human defense + technical defense" for farmland protection.

　　In 2023, China's grain output reached 1.39 trillion jin, setting a new record high while achieving "twenty consecutive years of bumper harvests." From implementing the "occupation and compensation balance" policy for farmland and exploring the "entry and exit balance" system for farmland, to simultaneously advancing the "increase-decrease linkage" and "increase-stock linkage" for construction land, the red line of farmland protection has been drawn ever tighter, making the rice bowl ever more secure.

　　Farmland is the lifeblood of grain production. This year's National Natural Resources Work Conference placed farmland protection in the foremost position, emphasizing the need to coordinate high-quality development with high-level protection and high-quality development with high-level security, and to strengthen the supply of differentiated policies.

　　In Xing Zhihong's view, the current period is one of deepening ecological civilization construction, a critical period for promoting common prosperity demonstrations, and a window period for intensifying macroeconomic regulation. There is greater room for natural resources policy supply, and it is essential to accurately understand the new tasks and new requirements that the current superposition of multiple periods and balancing of multiple objectives place on natural resources departments.

　　At the same time, new challenges cannot be avoided. Taking Zhejiang as an example, he noted that last year Zhejiang intensified efforts to reclaim and create farmland and deeply implemented the "Hundreds, Thousands, Ten Thousands" concentrated contiguous consolidation and construction of permanent basic farmland. The indicator pools of all counties (cities and districts) achieved positive figures, and the net increase in farmland area was realized for three consecutive years. On the other hand, however, the problem of farmland being converted to non-grain uses occurs from time to time, farmland abandonment still occurs, and the relatively scattered layout of agricultural space has not yet been fundamentally changed. "On the new journey of the new era, the task of achieving the trinity protection of farmland quantity, quality, and ecology remains arduous," Xing Zhihong said.

　　Next, to accomplish the goals and tasks of farmland protection, achieving the shift from end-of-pipe governance to front-end prevention is an important path. Xing Zhihong believes that weaving a tight dragnet of "human defense + technical defense" for farmland protection is the key to carrying out this work. He also put forward three suggestions based on Zhejiang's existing practices.

　　In terms of "human defense," focusing on strengthening the implementation of the farmland chief responsibility system, Xing Zhihong suggested formulating and issuing implementation opinions at the national level for comprehensively promoting the farmland chief system, to provide "higher-level" support for local innovations in farmland protection systems. At the same time, a collaborative working mechanism of "multiple chiefs" should be established to promote the transformation of daily supervision from "separate operations" to "one patrol, multiple inspections" and "one officer, multiple duties," and the transformation of governance models from "step-by-step implementation" to "integrated advancement," thereby enhancing the effectiveness of duty performance.

　　In terms of "technical defense," he focused on strengthening digital empowerment and suggested giving full play to the role of digital governance, installing "clairvoyance and clairaudience" for farmland protection and adding the wings of technology; establishing a trinity "technical defense" system of "tower-mounted cameras, satellite remote sensing, and drones" to ensure that illegal occupation of farmland is discovered early and fully.

　　In addition, farmland protection work should establish closed-loop thinking and improve closed-loop disposal. Xing Zhihong suggested that natural resources, agriculture and rural affairs, public security, and other departments in various localities strengthen coordination, establish and improve a whole-process closed-loop disposal mechanism for information reporting, transfer, and supervision of farmland "non-agriculturalization" and "non-grainization" problems, and accelerate the construction of a closed-loop disposal system of "early discovery, early stopping, and strict investigation and punishment" for illegal occupation of farmland.

　　Represented by the construction of a "human defense + technical defense" dragnet for farmland protection, Zhejiang is currently using a series of work innovations to advance the process of farmland protection. The province has also proposed to build itself into a province with the strictest institutional and mechanism innovation in farmland protection.

　　How can "strictest" and "innovation" be achieved? Xing Zhihong said that Zhejiang will, in accordance with the requirements of adapting to local conditions, continue to activate the strong new momentum of new quality productive forces and drive farmland protection work to move toward "newness" and advance toward "newness."

　　It is reported that in the future Zhejiang will start from continuing to improve the new pattern of "human defense + technical defense" farmland protection; advancing "small fields into large fields," "swapping mountain fields for lower fields," "coordinated matching of multiple types of fields," and "optimal composite utilization"; and exploring the "land consolidation +" model and other aspects, to continuously do a good job in the article on "newness."

　　For example, focusing on "human defense + technical defense," the province is further leveraging its early-mover advantage in digital governance to build and improve a "person-field correspondence" human defense responsibility system, a "tower-field correspondence" technical defense supervision system, a "map-data correspondence" farmland spatial ledger, and a "spatial adaptation" digital governance platform.

　　As another example, in advancing the "coordinated matching of multiple types of fields," Zhejiang will accelerate the integration of permanent basic farmland and high-standard farmland, ensure that all grain production functional zones fall within high-standard farmland, and achieve layer-by-layer matching of farmland, permanent basic farmland, high-standard farmland, and grain production functional zones, striving to solve the problem of scattered agricultural spatial layout and comprehensively build a new "pyramid-shaped" pattern of farmland protection.