Wen Jiabao: Subsidies for Expensive Fertilizer

Premier Wen Jiabao spent several days in the countryside of Anhui inspecting wheat and rapeseed crops, posing with farmers for photographers, being all-round good guy, and promising more subsidies.

A translation of a brief article below. The video is here.



I'm from the government and I'm here to help


"From April 9th to 11th, Communist Party Central Committee Political Bureau Standing Committee and State Council Premier Wen Jiabao inspected the crop conditions in two districts of Anhui Province. He went to villages to visit with common people and made field inspections of agricultural processing companies and the Huai River project site. He held a meeting where he listened to the views of grassroots-level cadres."

"Fengzui Village in Bengbu has 2600 mu of cultivated land and 2800 people. In the morning of April 9, Wen Jiabao visited wheat fields in the village. Green wheat sprouts were already tall. Some villagers were in the fields spraying for weeds. He pulled a couple of wheat plants to check them. Local officials told the premier that this year the district’s wheat area will be 6% higher due to early preparations for cultivation, field management grasps reality, overcoming the effects of cold weather, the wheat is in better shape than last year. If there is no major natural disaster, wheat harvest will be good. Wen Jiabao said, grain must have a good harvest, in the final analysis relying on 'good policy, energetic work, help from heaven [the sky]'. Good policy brings forth more human effort."

"Wen Jiabao asked everyone what problems they still have. One villager said recently fertilizer prices were increasing rapidly. Wen Jiabao said: 'Fertilizer, fuel price fluctuations are related to international oil price increases. If the oil price increases, agricultural input prices will also increase, and the government can give farmers subsidies.'"



Premier Wen Jiabao checks a farmer's subsidy records to make sure he got all the cash he had coming to him.