How Can Farmers Truly Share in the Fruits of Rural Reform? Experts Discuss

BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Under the joint guidance of the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Science and Technology Committee of the Ministry of Land and Resources, and hosted by the China International Urbanization Development Strategy Research Committee, a seminar themed “Let Farmers Share the Fruits of Reform” was held in Beijing on Dec. 4.

Participating experts and scholars held discussions on topics including how to let farmers truly share in the fruits of rural reform, how China's rural reform should be advanced in a systematic and scientific manner, and what kind of impact rural reform will have on improving the quality of China's urbanization.

Zhang Yinghong, a researcher at the Beijing Rural Economy Research Center and a doctor of law, believes: “The issues concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers are not only rural issues; they also reflect issues of national governance. To resolve these issues, the current urban-rural dual system and rural collective ownership both face change.” In addition, this issue also reflects a lack of institutional development centered on modern citizens.

Zhang Yinghong said that the country now faces a dual reform task: first, continuing to reform the drawbacks left over from the planned economy system; second, reforming the new problems that have emerged since reform, namely deep-seated problems. The core of reform should be reform centered on strengthening farmers' rights.

Cao Sifa, deputy director of the Beijing Rural Economy Research Center, has long focused on the governance of urban villages. He stated that the purpose of deepening rural reform is “to make cities better, make rural areas more developed, and make society more harmonious.”

Cao Sifa said that recently 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,” which “attaches great importance to and affirms rural finance,” and this is a very notable highlight. Citing the pilot project in Xihongmen Town, Daxing District, Beijing, on “township-level coordinated intensive use of collective construction land,” in which he participated, he pointed out that to solve rural problems, including those of urban villages, the key is to “release the potential of rural collectives (land, economy, and system).”

Li Jinkui, a principal researcher at the China Development Institute (Shenzhen, China), made a detailed analysis of the “Comprehensive Implementation Plan for Deepening Rural Reform,” and believes that this “Plan” is “an integration” of reforms over many years. Listing “the rural social governance system and rural grassroots organizational system becoming more complete” among the target tasks, and “allowing differentiated and transitional institutional and policy arrangements” are highlights in direction; the shortcoming is that it does not place reform of the national governance system at the core of rural reform.

Li Jinkui stated that the core of the “three rural issues” is not the income problem, not the land problem, but the problem of farmers' rights (to organize).