The three accounts of farmers who move to the city must be reckoned well for them

Exploring the reform pilot for paid withdrawal from contracted land is a realistic path for advancing appropriately scaled agricultural operations based on national conditions, and an important part of promoting the urbanization of people. To ensure this historical process advances smoothly, the key remains the question of how to safeguard the rights and interests of farmers who leave farming and move to the city. This requires reckoning well three accounts for them: one is the account of moving to the city, one is the account of leaving farming, and another is the account of a way back. This is not only a question of fairness, but also a question of efficiency, and even more a decisive, key question.

Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Transformation of Agricultural Development Modes, which clearly states that, on the basis of adhering to collective ownership of rural land and fully respecting farmers' wishes, pilot projects for paid withdrawal from farm households' contracted land should be steadily carried out in rural reform pilot areas, guiding farm households that have stable non-agricultural employment income and have long resided and lived in cities and towns to voluntarily withdraw from land contracting and management rights. It should be said that this decision is of great significance and far-reaching influence. It is not only conducive to advancing appropriately scaled agricultural operations, optimizing the allocation of agricultural resources, and raising agricultural productivity, but also has important guiding significance for further reducing the number of farmers and promoting the urbanization of people.

Appropriately scaled operations are an unavoidable path for advancing agricultural modernization, but at the current stage there are difficulties in two respects. On the one hand is the fragmentation of China's agricultural land, with the per capita cultivated land area of the agricultural labor force being less than 10 mu; on the other hand, because the problem of turning migrant workers into urban citizens has not been resolved, 269 million migrant workers still retain rural land. The land left to us by our forebears is only so much, and advancing appropriately scaled operations can only follow the path of new-type urbanization, allowing more migrant workers to integrate into cities as quickly as possible. The state has also proposed that by 2020 it will resolve the issue of granting urban residency to about 100 million people who have moved from agriculture and now reside permanently in cities and towns. Therefore, the significance of exploring paid withdrawal from contracted land by farmers who move to the city and meet the conditions lies precisely in this.

The direction and path are clear. To ensure this historical process advances smoothly, the key remains the question of how to safeguard the rights and interests of farmers who leave farming and move to the city. This requires reckoning well three accounts for them: one is the account of moving to the city, one is the account of leaving farming, and another is the account of a way back.

The first is the account of moving to the city. For farmers who move to the city, integrating into urban life is not that they are unwilling, but that it is not easy. If farmers who move to the city and their families want to settle down in the city and become new urban citizens, four questions must receive satisfactory answers: Is there stable employment? This employment is not guerrilla-style street work, nor something available today and gone tomorrow; running a small stall or doing small business is also acceptable, but it is best not to be chased all over the streets by urban management officers. Is there a place to live? Simple work sheds on construction sites and plastic-panel houses do not count; only being able to enjoy public rental housing and low-rent housing on the same terms as local residents counts. How about social security? In areas such as medical care and old-age support, it is best to enjoy same-city, same-coverage treatment as local residents. And can their children attend school in the city? They should be able to attend a nearby school like local children, without any extra fees. If these four major problems of employment, housing, social security, and children's schooling are not properly solved, they will not easily withdraw from the contracted land in their old homes. Therefore, promoting appropriately scaled agricultural operations is achieved in rural areas, but the real work lies in the cities, and ultimately it is reflected in the level of urbanization and in the progress of turning migrant workers into urban citizens.

The second is the account of leaving farming. What kind of mechanism is paid withdrawal from contracted land? What are the standards? How much is it really worth? Does it include the cost of settling in the city? Is it permanent withdrawal, or withdrawal of rights and interests within the contract period? If it is only withdrawal of rights and interests within the contract period, will there still be contracting rights in the next round of contracting? These questions are all unavoidable in reality and need to be explained clearly and plainly to farmers. In addition, farmers who move to the city originally enjoyed the legally granted "three rights": land contracting and management rights, homestead use rights, and the right to collective income distribution. After paid withdrawal from contracted land, do their homestead use rights still remain? Is the right to collective income distribution calculated for them as a one-time payment? Or do they continue to enjoy it within the contract period? According to investigations by relevant parties, at present more than 80% of migrant workers willing to settle in cities hope to retain their contracted land, and 2/3 of migrant workers hope to retain their homestead and property in rural areas. This also shows that, in safeguarding and developing the lawful rights and interests of farmers who move to the city when they leave farming, so that they happily leave rural areas and willingly withdraw from the land, doing a good job on the "paid" part is the key.

Finally, the account of a way back. Turning the agricultural transferred population into urban citizens is a long historical process, requiring at least the migration and evolution of several generations. The interest games, emotional entanglements, cultural ruptures, and ups and downs of fate experienced during this process are not as simple as "the wind passes and the water leaves no trace"; only those involved can truly taste the sweetness and bitterness within. Chinese farmers are deeply influenced by traditional culture, deeply love the land, and are attached to their native place and reluctant to move. When exploring pilot projects for paid withdrawal from contracted land, part of the farmers who move to the city should be encouraged to actively integrate into cities when conditions are ripe, and there should also be a measure of patience in governance, allowing part of the farmers who move to the city, even if only a minority, a longer period of hesitation, even if it may stretch out for a generation. For those farmers who move to the city but whose employment and income in the city are not very stable and whose expectations for the future are not very certain, and for those farmers who move to the city but cannot adapt to the city and want to return home, their insistence on having a way both forward and back should be fully respected, preventing them from losing their footing and ending up with nothing on either side. This is not only leaving a way back for farmers who move to the city, but also adding a line of thinking for sustainable development.

At present, the number of China's rural reform pilot areas has reached 58, covering 28 provinces across the country. They are highly representative, and their experimental results are correspondingly highly demonstrative. But even so, when piloting paid withdrawal in the pilot areas, the principle of steady progress should still be upheld, and there should be no rush or excessive haste. After all, the more prudence, the more propriety; the more vigilance, the more thoroughness. It would be better to expand the scope of the pilot a little further, consider the difficulties a little more, and grasp the timing a little more accurately, truly achieving both strategic vision and practical relevance, both overall planning and dialectical policy implementation, both a advancement mechanism and timely improvement. Only then can the purpose of the experiment not be lost, and only then can the pilot have meaning and effect.

Exploring the reform pilot for paid withdrawal from contracted land is a realistic path for advancing appropriately scaled agricultural operations based on national conditions, and an important part of promoting the urbanization of people. Therefore, reckoning well the three accounts for farmers who move to the city, and not letting their rights and interests be harmed, is not only a question of fairness, but also a question of efficiency, and even more a decisive, key question.