The commodity attributes of farmers' homestead land should be recognized

To achieve the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, solving the problems of farmers and rural development is key. If rural areas cannot develop and farmers cannot become prosperous, the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects will fall through.

China has long had a urban-rural dual structure, which is an important factor behind the long-term lag in rural development. The formation of the urban-rural dual structure has complex institutional and systematic causes, and one very important aspect is that the assets in farmers' hands can hardly be turned into capital.

Due to the restrictions of China's land system, the cultivated land, homestead land, houses and other non-agricultural construction land contracted by farmers are, under normal circumstances, very difficult to circulate. The inability to circulate means that these assets of farmers cannot be transformed into capital and are difficult to use for mortgages or to realize cash, thus reducing farmers' property income. By contrast, some farmers in urban suburbs have had their land requisitioned for development and received large compensation payments, becoming rich overnight. This is in fact a distorted reflection of farmers' assets being turned into capital.

Chongqing established a rural land exchange in 2008 to carry out a pilot program of land ticket trading. Over the 7 years of the pilot, farmers withdrew from homestead land and transferred more than 200,000 mu of land, adding more than 70,000 mu of cultivated land, thereby increasing farmers' income and meeting the demand for urban construction land. China's rural per capita construction land is 3.5 times that of urban areas. Rural construction land nationwide totals 253 million mu, so it can be said that the greatest potential of China's land resources lies in rural homestead land. Urban residents' housing can be exchanged as a commodity, while rural residents' housing cannot enter the market, which limits the increase of rural residents' property income and creates the greatest inequality between urban and rural residents. According to Chongqing's pilot, calculated at an average transaction price of 200,000 yuan per mu, the market price of rural homestead land nationwide is about 50 trillion yuan; taking into account remote areas far from cities, calculated at an average price of 100,000 yuan per mu, the national total is still 25 trillion yuan. If this bonus were given to farmers, the urban-rural gap would be greatly narrowed, and building a moderately prosperous society in rural areas would be very promising. Once farmers' wallets are fuller, their spending power will increase and domestic demand will expand, which can also serve as a major measure to reverse the current economic downturn.

The "Decision" of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee clearly stated: "Grant farmers the possession, use, income, and circulation of contracted land and the right to use contracted management rights as shares to develop industrialized operations, encourage the circulation of contracted management rights on the open market to specialized large households, family farms, farmer cooperatives, and agricultural enterprises, and develop various forms of scaled operations." In accordance with the spirit of the Central Committee's decision, the ownership, contracting rights, and management rights of rural land are separated into three rights, with ownership belonging to the collective, contracting rights belonging to farming households, and management being opened up. This has a positive role in promoting the transformation of farmers' assets into capital. Land management rights, as farmers' greatest asset in the past, have been circulated in many places, but this has not achieved notable results and has even triggered disputes over the distribution of agricultural subsidies. Therefore, the key still depends on whether the transferee of the land circulation and the creditor party in mortgage or pledge can accept and recognize the security and liquidity of the transfer, and whether disputes can be settled. At the present stage, we must constantly pay attention to the results of this reform and make timely summaries and judgments, because it concerns the increase of farmers' property income, the smooth development of agriculture, and consequently the completion of the goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects.

⟦NL> Another issue closely related to increasing farmers' income is how the large number of migrant workers entering cities can increase their income and settle down in cities. Although China's urbanization construction over the past more than ten years has achieved great successes, inadequate reform of the fiscal and tax systems has led to excessively high housing prices, making it difficult for the people to buy homes with normal wage income and squeezing their spending power. Solving this problem certainly requires comprehensive deepening of reform in the next step, but in the short term, for migrant workers, to enable them to gain a firm foothold in cities, apart from improving relevant supporting systems, the most direct and effective way is for them to be able to transfer and cash in rural homestead land and housing, and thereby buy homes and settle down in cities. Therefore, corresponding changes should be made in this regard. On the basis of unified registration of immovable property and a sound property tax, recognizing the commodity attributes of farmers' homestead land and housing is an important channel for increasing farmers' property income.