How to Prevent Risks in Rural Land Transfer? A Few Suggestions for Reference

Guiding the transfer of rural land management rights is an important means of promoting large-scale agricultural operations, developing modern agriculture, and enhancing agricultural competitiveness, and is an important part of comprehensively deepening rural reform. As rural land transfer advances step by step, the scale of transfer has expanded year by year, and various potential risks have continued to emerge. The General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council have issued the "Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Management Rights to Develop Moderately Scaled Agricultural Operations" and the "Comprehensive Implementation Plan for Deepening Rural Reform." How can risks in rural land transfer be effectively avoided? The author puts forward three suggestions:

First, do a good job in rights confirmation and certification to prevent social stability risks. Institutional economics holds that clear property rights are the foundation of market transactions. The newly issued "Comprehensive Implementation Plan for Deepening Rural Reform" places reform of the rural property rights system first among five key areas, and explicitly proposes that “the contracted management rights of collective land must be implemented, in accordance with the law and fairly, to every farming household in the collective organization.” Rural land transfer is in essence a transaction of rural land management rights between different entities. Doing a good job in rural land rights confirmation and certification, clarifying the property rights of each piece of agricultural land, and stabilizing land property rights reduce risks for farmers. If land rights confirmation and certification lag behind, it is easy to trigger land disputes and conflicts, and even mass incidents. First, extensively publicize the importance of rural land rights confirmation and certification, strengthen farmers' awareness of land property rights, and make farmers aware of the importance of rural land contracted management rights in their production and life, as well as the possibility of profiting in the future by relying on rural land management rights. Second, strictly follow the procedures for land rights confirmation and certification. In the process of rural land rights confirmation and certification, strictly follow working procedures such as investigation and preliminary surveying, verification and actual measurement, public announcement and review, establishment of registers, and issuance of certificates, to ensure that plot information is accurate and clear and that ownership registration is objective and fair. Third, properly resolve disputes over rights confirmation and certification. Establish a dispute mediation mechanism for rural land rights confirmation and certification, strictly follow relevant laws, regulations, and policies such as the "Rural Land Contracting Law" and the "Working Rules for Pilot Registration of Rural Land Contracted Management Rights" to carry out rights confirmation and registration work, adhere to the principles of “maintaining stability, complying with the law and regulations, giving priority to confirming land, democratic consultation, and adapting to local conditions,” mediate and handle conflicts and problems that have a basis in law in accordance with laws and regulations, and for problems without clear basis, refer to the spirit of relevant laws, regulations, and policies and uphold the principles of “respecting history, facing reality, and equal consultation” to resolve them properly, ensuring that rights confirmation and registration work is carried out smoothly and in an orderly manner, thereby preventing related social stability risks caused by rights confirmation work.

⟦NL> Second, standardize transfer procedures to prevent risks of disorderly transfer. Standardizing land transfer procedures in accordance with the law is the foundation for preventing risks, because standardizing contractual transactions in land transfer will reduce risks for all parties involved. At present, land transfer is mostly spontaneous, transfer contracts are not standardized, farmers' interests cannot be guaranteed, and some grassroots officials, pursuing high transfer rates for their own interests, disregard reality and excessively push land transfer by administrative means, leading to oversized scale and various potential risks. To prevent the risk of disorderly transfer, first, reasonably determine the scale. The experience and lessons of land management during periods of social transformation abroad show that under certain socioeconomic conditions, levels of productive forces, and levels of management, excessive concentration of rural land and overly large agricultural production scale will produce the phenomenon of “diseconomies of scale.” Therefore, the scale of land management is not the bigger the better; there should be an appropriate range. All localities should, based on multiple factors such as regional characteristics, land conditions, crop varieties, and levels of economic and social development, as well as the situation of rural labor transfer, the level of agricultural mechanization, and agricultural production conditions, study and determine suitable standards for land scale management in their areas. Generally, a land management scale equivalent to 10 to 15 times the local average contracted land area per household is appropriate. Second, standardize land transfer contracts. Require the use of a unified land transfer contract text, clarifying the form, term, transfer price, and the rights of both parties to the transfer. Third, build a land transfer service platform. Improve the three-level transfer service and management network at the county, city, and district, township, and village levels, ensure that dedicated departments and staff are responsible for acceptance, approval, review, and filing work, provide services such as information release, policy consultation, price evaluation, and contract authentication for both parties to the transfer, and standardize each step and procedure of rural land transfer. Fourth, improve the risk prevention mechanism for land transfer. On the one hand, vigorously develop the agricultural insurance system to reduce operational risks and natural risks; on the other hand, improve the land transfer risk fund system or the advance payment system for land rent, so as to pay farmers for income losses after operational failure and ensure prevention of risks to farmers' income.

Third, strictly control use to prevent food security risks. Rural land transfer must ensure that the use after transfer remains unchanged, prevent “non-agriculturalization” and “non-grainization” after transfer, and safeguard national food security. First, formulate agricultural land use plans and plans for the development of leading agricultural industries according to local main functional zoning and resource and environmental conditions, and, in accordance with the principle of “agricultural land for agricultural use, concentrated industries,” formulate plans to guide the transfer of agricultural land to local advantageous industries. Second, establish a strict access and supervision system for industrial and commercial capital entering agriculture. For industrial and commercial capital leasing farmers' contracted land, review the enterprise's qualifications and ability to prevent risks, and especially strengthen ex post supervision to strictly prevent changes in the use of transferred contracted land. Third, strengthen government responsibility and set a reasonable proportion or figure for “non-agriculturalization” and “non-grainization” in land transfer as a hard indicator for local government assessment, so as to ensure that use does not change after land transfer and ensure that the area planted with grain does not decrease. Fourth, improve agricultural subsidy policies and the incentive system for the transfer of land management rights. On the one hand, do not give subsidies to agricultural land that is “non-agriculturalized” and “non-grainized” after transfer; on the other hand, issue specific land transfer measures and give a certain degree of policy support in finance, banking, infrastructure, and other aspects to scaled operating entities that have not changed land use after transfer, such as arranging a certain amount of special support funds for land transfer and giving one-time subsidies to qualifying scaled operating entities according to the term of the transfer contract and the scale and area of the transfer.