Rural development faces challenges in three aspects; what exactly are these problems?

On November 2, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Comprehensive Implementation Plan for Deepening Rural Reform," and public opinion generally holds that the publication of this document means the top-level design for rural reform has officially been released. In my view, the document is a major step by rural work toward the market-oriented direction of rural reform established at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee.

Rural development faces challenges in three aspects. First, on the basis of adhering to the system of combining unified management with separate management and the two-tier management system, how to make the market play a decisive role in the allocation of land factors and improve land use efficiency. Second, how to improve the international competitiveness of China's agricultural products, reduce agricultural production costs, and gradually lower the cost of food for Chinese people. Third, how to combine new rural construction with urbanization, establish a unified urban-rural social management system, and let farmers share in the benefits of urbanization. Only by letting farmers who meet the conditions enter cities and cultivating new-type professional farmers in rural areas can farmers' income levels and the quality of rural construction be improved. Only prosperous professional farmers have the ability to build a beautiful new countryside.

The "Comprehensive Implementation Plan for Deepening Rural Reform" has many highlights.

First, it focuses on the issue of membership rights in rural collective economic organizations, creating conditions for rural property rights reform. In the past in rural areas, whoever was born into a collective was a member of that collective and enjoyed its dividends. In 1995, the "Notice of the State Council Approving and Transmitting the Ministry of Agriculture's Opinions on Stabilizing and Improving the Land Contracting Relationship" emphasized “advocating the implementation during the contract period of ‘adding people does not add land, reducing people does not reduce land’.” In 2008, the Third Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee made clear that the existing contracting relationship should remain stable and unchanged for a long time. “Unchanged for a long time” means that membership rights in collective economic organizations will change from the original “rights granted by birth” to “rights granted by inheritance.” Maintaining contracting rights unchanged for a long time through inheritance strengthens farmers' property rights. If farmers' land contracting rights change constantly, how can land management rights be transferred? Therefore, we must make clear that land contracting rights cannot be adjusted according to population births. As reform deepens, collective economic membership rights can also be formed through “rights granted by transaction.” The document emphasizes exploring a paid use system for homestead land and a voluntary paid exit mechanism, and also allows exploration of paid transfer of land contracting rights; these are breakthrough reform opinions that will give farmers more autonomy and help deepen market-oriented reform.

Second, in the management system organization, it clearly proposes letting farmers share in the returns of the industrial chain. In Western developed countries, land returns account for only a relatively small part of farmers' income, with the bulk coming from income in the industrial chain. In our country, however, most farmers who work the land can only scrape some income from the land and have not been able to obtain returns from a series of industrial chain links such as agricultural services, processing, circulation, and buying and selling. Sharing in the returns of the industrial chain requires the strength of cooperatives, and the document clearly proposes establishing “demonstration cooperatives”; this formulation is very striking. In the future, cooperatives should be developed and strengthened through “demonstration cooperatives,” and there should no longer be a one-sided pursuit of the number of cooperatives.

Third, vigorously clean up, integrate, and standardize fiscal support for agriculture, and rectify “scattered, chaotic” and ineffective special agricultural funds. In the past, agricultural funds were spent recklessly and in a scattered manner. Now it is clearly proposed that qualified cooperatives may engage in production and operation cooperation plus credit cooperation, which meets the needs of the rural market economy. Credit cooperation must comply with regulations; there are already places engaging in fake cooperation and real fundraising, which must be seriously corrected.

Fourth, the plan emphasizes the established principles concerning urban-rural integration. For example, it promotes the equalization of basic public services between urban and rural areas and enriches the content of reform. In the future, efforts should be made to let rural people and urban people enjoy the same rights, lower the threshold for rural people to enter cities, and completely eliminate identity discrimination against farmers.

Fifth, the plan further strengthens the building of service-oriented Party organizations at the rural grassroots level, strengthens the building of convenient service networks at the county, township, and village levels, and requires Party organizations to do more practical things for the masses. In recent years, the central government has paid increasing attention to social governance and required Party organization activities to be grounded in reality. The plan recommends the reform experience of Nanhai and Qingyuan in Guangdong and proposes the direction for adjusting rural governance mechanisms. Nanhai District carried out a “separation of politics and economy” experiment, reasonably dividing the functions of rural grassroots organizations in rural public affairs and competitive economic affairs. Qingyuan City promoted the appropriate sinking of self-governance organizations to villagers' groups or natural villages, which helps mobilize the enthusiasm of rural elites for voluntary service.

This document has so many highlights, but the greatest highlight is that it dares to face reform difficulties directly and encourages local enthusiasm for exploration. China's reform path has always required combining top-level design with local exploration, and neither can be missing. The release of this plan will push rural reform to a new level.