IPP369 v2 Jilin Province & World Bank Project of Agro-products Quality and Safety Public Disclosure Authorized Social Impact Assessment Report Public Disclosure Authorized Regional Agriculture Research Center Institute of Geography and Agricultural Ecology of Northeast China Chinese Academy of Sciences June 10, 2009 Public Disclosure Authorized Public Disclosure Authorized Abstract Commissioned by the project management office of the Jilin Province & World Bank Project of Agro-products Quality and Safety, specialists from the Regional Agriculture Research Center of the Institute of Geography and Agricultural Ecology of Northeast China of the Chinese Academy of Sciences visited 32 townships under nine municipalities/prefectures of Jilin Province to conduct the on-the-spot surveys to the five project components of the Jilin Province & World Bank Project of Agro-products Quality and Safety for the purpose of social impact assessments of the project. As agreed in the contract, the specialists finished the Social Impact Assessment Report on June 10, 2009, which is composed of eight parts: Project Background, Socioeconomic Outline of the Project Area, Ethnic Minority Outline and Policies Pertaining to Ethnic Minorities, Ethnic Minority Development Baseline and Livelihood Structures, Analyses of Stakeholders, Analyses of Project Impacts, Community Involvement Strategy, Outline of Major Stakeholders’ Involvement, and Conclusion and Suggestions. The Jilin Province & World Bank Project of Agro-products Quality and Safety is comprises five components: good agricultural practice standardization and promotion, public monitoring of agro-products quality and safety, applied research on agro-products quality and safety, training and awareness raising, demonstration of safe agro-products production, and project management. This project involves all the prefectures and municipalities of Jilin Province. It will raise the level and monitoring capacity of agro-products quality and safety in Jilin Province to ensure safe consumption, raise the sense of responsibility among producers, business operators and administrative supervisors, increase farmers’ revenues, optimize agricultural structures, make agro-products more competitive in markets, and protect eco-environment so as to attain sustainable agricultural development and safeguard social stability. Jilin is a frontier province with multi-nationalities. It has 48 ethnic minorities, including Koreans, Manchu, Mongolians and Huizu that have lived in the province for centuries. The population of ethnic minorities is 2.4534 million, accounting for 9.15% of the total population of the province. There are four ethnic minority autonomous regions: Yanbian Ethnic Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Qianguo’erluosi Ethnic Mongolian Autonomous County, Changbai Ethnic Korean Autonomous County, and Yitong Ethnic Manchu Autonomous County. Ethnic minority groups live in extensive areas, mainly in mountainous regions, semi-mountainous regions, grasslands and frontier areas, all with rich natural resources. Among ethnic minorities with big populations are Koreans (1.15 million, ranking first in China), who are found mainly in Yanbian, Jilin, Tonghua, Baishan, etc. in the east of Jilin Province, Manchu (990000) and Huizu (130000), who are found mainly in Changchun, Jilin, Tonghua and Siping, and Mongolians (170000), who are mainly found in Baicheng and Songyuan in the west of Jilin Province. In the preparation phase of the social impact assessment, the World Bank’s social I impact assessment specialists identified major factors that have impacts on the project objective attainment: (1) major social impact factors in the demonstration component implementation, including behavior patterns of the affected people, community participation, institutional arrangement, poverty, etc.; (2) ethnic minorities: social factors of concern, including policies pertaining to ethnic minorities; features of population, society, culture, etc. of ethnic minorities; learning about specific requirements of ethnic minorities through consultations; obtaining support to the project from ethnic minority communities through consultations; proposing measures adaptable to ethnic minority cultures to prevent or mitigate adverse impacts to ethnic communities due to the project implementation. Focusing on the aforementioned social factors potential to exert impact on the project objective attainment, on the basis of field survey data for the social impact assessment report, incorporating results from the latest year books and literature, this report gives special attention to the following: (1) Ethic minorities in the project area. Referring to the World Bank OP4.10, the assessment team conducted surveys on cultural features, social structures, livelihood, resources for living, etc. of the ethnic minorities in the project area, made analyses of the project impacts on the ethnic minorities, equal benefits to the ethnic minorities, etc., and proposed measures to promote ethnic minorities’ participation in and benefit from the project implementation. (2) Major stakeholders’ participation in the project. In the field work, the social impact assessment team was engaged in unrestricted pre-information involvement with major stakeholders through talks, interviews, etc. to jointly make analyses of development issues, project impacts, suggestions, etc., and, based on that, the social impact assessment team prepared the outline for major stakeholders’ participation. The project’s major social benefits lie in the following aspects: （1）Raising agricultural standardization level and farmers’ revenues in our province; optimizing agricultural production structures; making our province’s agro-products more competitive in international markets; protecting agricultural eco-environment; raising people’s living standards, and protecting consumers’ health. （2） Making accurate and effective assessments on the present situations of agro-products production origins in our province and updating our attachment to environmental quality; effectively controlling damages of agricultural eco-environment by industrial pollution and daily garbage, ensuring that the water bodies, arable land and climatic conditions meet the production of agro-products conforming to safe production of agro-products; encouraging rational applications of agricultural chemicals such as agricultural pesticides, fertilizers, agricultural film, veterinarian drugs, etc. during agro-products production, lowering their application frequencies and quantities, raising their effectiveness and safety, reducing residues of toxic and harmful substances such as agricultural pesticides, veterinarian drugs, etc. and scaling down agricultural ecological pollution; effectively controlling surface water eutrophication and preventing non-point agricultural pollutions; adjusting and optimizing industrial structures, effectively guiding and managing agro-products production, making rational use of land, raising agricultural production profits, making masses of farmers more enthusiastic and creative in their production; II intensifying overall monitoring and control of agricultural production environment and production processes, remaining well-informed of agro-products quality situations, and making projections on agro-products quality development trends. （3）Furthering awareness of agro-products quality and safety; markedly raising testing and supervising capacity for agro-products quality and safety. （4）Raising the levels of agro-products quality and safety to adapt to z ever-increasing international and domestic demands for food safety; raising added values in agro-products and effectively raising farmers’ revenues; promoting farmers’ cooperative and economic organizations, raising farmers’ competence, expediting systematic innovation; changing traditional agricultural development models, emphasizing both resources development and eco-environment protection; embarking on the road of economic, social and environmental harmony under the new circumstances. The project’s potential adverse impacts are as follows: （1）When the project is completed, the production costs of some agro-products may increase, which may exert more economic pressures on poverty-stricken farmers; the implementation of agro-products quality and safety standards may cause agro-products price to rise, which may lead to more burdens to consumers and more economic pressures on poverty-stricken consumer groups; the testing costs of agro-products quality and safety may further increase production costs of agro-products, which will add more economic pressures on individual farmers. （2）Quality testing labs may add more risks of pollution to surrounding environments. （3）Continuous risks in people’s lifestyle and awareness and project objective attainment. 人民生产生活方式以及意识与项目目标实现和持续的风险。 （4）The quality and safe agricultural demonstration component may have adverse impacts on surrounding farmers and enterprises engaged in agricultural production in terms of their agro-products quality and sales. （5）The processes of quality and safe agro-products popularization and promotion may broaden wealth-poverty gaps in some regions or among some groups of people. （6）There are some risks concerning the project’s sustainability. Given the potential adverse impacts and social risks, the assessment team makes some reduction or mitigation proposals below: （1）Stepping up publicity of agro-products quality and safety during the project implementation period to enable more and more