Due to the basic status and weak nature of agriculture, both developed and developing countries, government finances have given a lot of support and protection to agriculture.

Summarizing and learning from the successful experiences of government fiscal agricultural investment in developed countries has important reference significance for improving the efficiency of the Chinese government's fiscal "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" investment and formulating "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" fiscal policies.

1. General practices of fiscal agricultural investment in developed countries Generally speaking, there are two main goals of fiscal agricultural investment in developed countries: one is agricultural development, and the other is agricultural protection.

Fiscal agricultural development funds are mainly used for agricultural technology development and agricultural technology progress, scientific research and technology promotion, infrastructure construction, agricultural expansion of reproduction and improvement of agricultural structure, etc.

Fiscal agricultural protection mainly includes agricultural product price support and protection, rural environmental management and protection, rural relief and rural social security.

Specifically, the general practices of fiscal agricultural input in developed countries can be summarized as follows: (1) Fiscal agricultural input methods 1. Price support for agricultural products.

In order to increase farmers' enthusiasm for engaging in agriculture and maintain and increase farmers' income, developed countries generally adopt price support methods to implement agricultural protection.

The United States began to implement agricultural product price support policies in the 1920s, with the main means including price parity (guaranteed prices), financing, and government procurement.

Government finance mainly provides price support through the establishment of commodity credit companies.

The government directs the Commodity Credit Corporation to issue loans to farmers with the goal of stabilizing prices and using agricultural products as collateral.

When the market price is higher than the price set by the loan, the farmer sells the product to repay the loan. When there is a surplus of agricultural products, the producer can sell the product to the government at a certain rate of parity (but higher than the market level)①.

Since the implementation of the Basic Agricultural Law in 1961, in order to promote the balance between urban and rural incomes, stimulate the expansion of agricultural production scale, and promote agricultural modernization, Japan has significantly increased the prices of agricultural products and implemented a "support price system" for agricultural products, which has increased the prices of agricultural products by more than

Industrial products increased by ②.

2. Direct income subsidies for farmers.

Developed countries have always adopted highly protective policies for their agricultural development and farmers’ income.

As the early domestic price support policies of major developed countries led to overproduction of domestic agricultural products and distortion of agricultural product prices in international trade, which in turn resulted in some international trade disputes for agricultural products, therefore, under the constraints of WTO agricultural rules, countries continue to change their domestic agricultural support methods.

The fiscal agricultural support policies of developed countries have gradually shifted from price support to direct income subsidies to farmers. For example, the European Union canceled price subsidies for agricultural products in 2003 and adopted a direct income subsidy policy for farmers.

(2) Key areas of fiscal agricultural investment 1. Improve the government’s basic agricultural public service level.

In order to improve the efficiency of the use of fiscal agricultural investment funds, many developed countries focus on improving the government's basic public service level in the process of fiscal agricultural investment.

The EU and Japan are more prominent in this regard, respectively providing services such as organizing training for farmers, consulting services, strengthening transportation infrastructure construction, communication facility construction, and supporting agricultural technology research.

Since such services have a wide scope and are conducive to improving basic agricultural conditions without causing distortions, many developed countries have adopted measures that are conducive to the equalization of basic agricultural public services as long as their financial resources allow.

2. Focus on supporting the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas.

According to WTO rules, all countries have adjusted their fiscal agricultural support policies to varying degrees.

Gradually increase support for sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas.

Since 1995, Japan has significantly adjusted its financial support policy for agriculture, mainly within the scope of the "green box" policy allowed by WTO rules, from subsidizing production and circulation links in the past to supporting the fairness of agriculture.

services, agricultural infrastructure and support for production structure adjustment.

The EU and the United States are also constantly adjusting their domestic agricultural support policies, and their adjustment directions have a certain degree of convergence, that is, increasing fiscal expenditures on other "green box" policies besides direct subsidies, especially greatly strengthening agricultural research and technology.

Expenditures on public welfare services such as promotion, food safety inspection, pest control, and infrastructure construction, as well as expenditures on strengthening resource and ecological environment protection and development of poverty-stricken areas.

(3) Fiscal agricultural investment fund management Fiscal agricultural investment is an important part of a country’s fiscal expenditure, and its budget management, expenditure management and financial supervision are all included in the entire national fiscal expenditure management framework.

By analyzing the country's fiscal expenditure management, we can see some laws and characteristics of fiscal agricultural investment.

The management of fiscal agricultural investment funds in developed countries can be divided into the following aspects: 1. Budget management.

Developed countries generally have stricter budget management.

Taking the EU and Germany as examples, the agricultural budget procedures of the EU and German governments are roughly divided into four stages: budget preparation, budget audit, budget execution, and post-budget execution inspection and performance evaluation①.

(1) Budget preparation.

The EU agricultural budget preparation is based on the EU Budget Law, budget regulations and relevant EU policy documents, and closely focuses on the medium and long-term agricultural development plan (seven-year plan).