Fishery is a component of agriculture. Aquaculture village is also a agricultural village. The fundamental policies adopted by the state towards agriculture and rural development are the same for the development of rural aquaculture. The state has pointed out that agriculture must be treated as the foundation, and insisted that agriculture must be placed before everything else. The state has also formulated policies and strategic plans for rural reforms and for the development of rural economy through the development of agriculture, capture fisheries and aquaculture. A series of concrete fishery policies have been formed in accordance with the above principle.
In March of 1985, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council issued the document titled “The Instruction of Broaden Policies to Accelerating Fisheries Development”, in which the development of aquaculture is considered as strategic importance, especially promotion of production in rural areas. The document clearly points out, aquaculture must be put in the first place in fisheries in China, with culture, capture and processing developing concurrently, and state-run, collective and individuals are all encouraged. It is the first time that the fisheries development with stress on aquaculture is clearly written down in the State policies for fisheries development. The policy also encouraged the expansion of contract responsibility system.
With the gradual establishment of the socialist market-oriented economic system, great changes have taken place in aquaculture development. At the end of 1996, the State Council authorized and transmitted the document “The Suggestion on Further Speeding Up Fisheries Development” submitted by Ministry of Agriculture. The document pointed out that the policy of fisheries development at the new stage was “to quicken aquaculture development, to protect and rationally utilize offshore resources, actively enlarge distant fishery, pay special attention to processing and circulation, and strengthen legal management”. This policy once again gave first priority to aquaculture development. It was essential to widen and deepen the way of aquaculture development, to put the first priority to increasing per unit production through the measures of strengthening new technologies, to bring more species under culture, to regulate culture species and to increase production by a big margin. And efforts were made to stabilize production of traditional species, and meanwhile to actively develop high value species in line with local conditions and according to demands in the market.
The State requested that aquaculture development be based on comprehensive exploitation of uncultivable land resources that are suitable for aquaculture. In line with local conditions, the unused water and land can be contracted to one household or households, leased or transferred. In addition, the right of use can be sold by auction. In the course of stabilization and perfection of family responsibility contract system and diversification of the economy, fishery shareholding cooperative system should be introduced and standardized so that aquaculture could be managed on an appropriate scale.
The State recommended that in the projects aiming at developing rural economy, aquaculture should be combined with agriculture in an integrated way wherever it is possible. For example, paddy-fish culture should be expanded to increase food production. In poverty stricken regions, particularly in the mid-western region, aquaculture development should be expanded as one of the important channels to promote the development of rural economy and to lead farmers out of poverty.
For the purpose of advancing the development of aquaculture, the state stipulates that taxes on special products should be reduced, so also incentives should be offered to those units and individuals who are engaged in aquaculture on newly-exploited water areas and land. The money collected from contract, lease, transfer and auction of the right of use of waste water areas and lands should be used exclusively on construction of fisheries basic facilities. Funds to support aquaculture allocated by the State at various levels should be used to develop aquaculture, and the sum will be increased along with the advancement of production. For requisitioned aquaculture sites located in the sub-urban areas, requisition units should consult the regulations relating to requisition of vegetable plots and pay development funds in addition to compensation paid according to compensation standard. The development funds should be used to build culture facilities.
The State also stipulated that seed production system and disease control system should be strengthened and quality fish feed production technology improved. In the process of prevention and cure of diseases, the guiding principle of “Taking prevention as the dominant factor; combining prevention with cure in a comprehensive way” must be carried out. Disease prevention and cure network must be formed at various levels; monitoring, forecast and organization of prevention and cure strengthened; and management of production and sale of fish seed and medicines for aquaculture must be improved.
In the whole process of fisheries/aquaculture production, stress was placed on forming a clear conception of sustainable development; deepening consciousness of resources protection; perfecting fisheries legal system; protecting of fisheries ecological environment; improving scientific research, education and technical extension, and building up aquatic products marketing system.
At present, China is implementing the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000). Fisheries is a component of the five-year agriculture plan. It was originally planned that by 2000 the total fisheries production would be 28.5 million mt, of which aquaculture production would be 17 million mt. But the target was already attained in 1997. Now the new target has been set. The total production target by 2000 is 35 million mt, of which aquaculture production will make up more than 60%, that is, over 21 million mt. It is believed that this target will surely be fulfilled.
The aquaculture development plans and programmes are embodied in the Five-Year Fisheries Development Plan drawn by Bureau of Fisheries and implemented by the institutions concerned under the inspection of the Ministry of Agriculture.
In order to develop agriculture and rural economy, in recent years, the State has formulated and promoted two important plans - the Bumper Harvest Plan and the Thriving Agriculture through Science and Technology Plan. In these plans, fisheries and fishery village development plans are included. The Bumper Harvest Plan is to help the selected regions to reform and develop so as to reap good harvests in every aspect in the whole region through the implementation of some projects. The Thriving Agriculture Through Science and Technology Plan is to set up some projects with advance, mature technologies to help the selected production units to raise production and income by a bigger margin. As for fisheries, in concrete terms, under the unified planning, the National Fishery Bumper Harvest Plan and Plan of Important Fisheries Technology Extension by the Ministry of Agriculture were formulated following the same method. These plans and projects mainly implemented by the fishery technical extension stations are playing a major part in promoting the development of rural aquaculture.
The conventional capital investment for fisheries is allocated by the State, and the portion used for aquaculture is increasing year by year. In 1978, it stood at 7.5 million yuan, representing 11.6%. In 1997, it went up to 1.22 billion yuan, representing 46.4%. The fund is mainly used for the establishment of seed propagation stations and production demonstration stations. The main purpose of this support is to help develop rural aquaculture.
