Reform Of The Agricultural Administration And Management System In China: In Framework Of The WTO

In the 21 century, the world economy is becoming more and more integrated. The international organizations such as IMF, World Bank and WTO are becoming more and more powerful. With China's accession to the WTO, the current agricultural administration system is facing greater challenges. Comparing with many of the rules established by the WTO and the agricultural administration and management system in China, it is imperative to deepen our institutional reform. Under this background, the author tries to study systematically on the agricultural administration and management system in China both in a qualitative and quantitative way, so as to give some realistic policy recommendations for the future reform of the agricultural administration and management system in China.The paper starts from a comprehensive review of the development of the agricultural administration and management system in China since the 1950s, in a!) relevant aspects, such as its evolution and problems, efficiency evaluation, affecting factors and policy choices for the optimization of the agricultural administration and management system in China. This is done also with an international comparison with some developed countries, such as the USA and Japan,The agricultural administration and management system in China has undergone several transformations. Besides the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), many ministries and agencies are executing some of the functions that are best integrated with the MOA, such as the State Forestry Administration, the Ministry of Science and Technology and many others. This bureaucratic management system inherently has numerous problems in coordination and can hardly meet the future demand in economic and social development in coming decades.Firstly, from the experience of developed countries, e.g. the USDA upholds the whole chain from the field to table, and many functions from food safety and market regulations to natural resource management and rural development. Japan attaches great importance to the functions of intermediate agencies, especially so-called "Nokyo" (农协). Both of them implement their administrative functions according to the law. In addition, the third sectors in agriculture play an important role in the agricultural administration.Secondly, from the basis of the domestic situation, the efficiency of our management system is relatively low. It is necessary to select some indicators and choose an appropriate method to evaluate it, and then people can explore the ways to improve it. Concerning the affecting factors, the agricultural administration and management system itself is the resistance to the innovation. The fundamental ways to resolve this problem is to rescind the privilege controlled by the administration system.In addition, the rules of WTO and relevant agreements require that the government must observe market non-discrimination, legalization and transparency, that is real challenges to the current management system. To reform the agricultural administration and management system in China so to meet the WTO rules is becoming more and more important.At last, the study brought up some policy recommendations for the refonn of the agricultural administration and management system in China today. That demands ideological, institutional andtechnological innovations. Only working in a spirit of innovation can the efficiency of the agricultural administration and management system be enhanced, and the development of agriculture and rural society be promoted to a new level.