Improve the Farmland Protection System to Safeguard National Food Security

The quantity and quality of farmland are directly related to national food security. Although China's grain output has achieved “eleven consecutive years of growth”, we must still remain vigilant in times of peace and, in particular, curb the current trend of land “non-agriculturalization” emerging in the process of land transfer, improve the strictest farmland protection system, and safeguard national food security.

With the in-depth implementation of the “agricultural transformation” strategy and the marked acceleration in the upgrading of agricultural industrial facilities, the area of rural land transferred and the transfer rate have shown a trend of rising year by year. According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, as of the end of June 2014, the area of contracted farmland transferred in rural areas nationwide reached 380 million mu, accounting for 28.8% of the total contracted farmland area. With the acceleration of the pace of developing new rural areas and new towns, commercial projects and industrial and commercial capital have also entered the rural market in large quantities, and the phenomenon of an increasing trend of farmland “non-agriculturalization” has appeared. The manifestations of non-agriculturalized transfer are diverse. For example, some leading agricultural enterprises have not fully utilized all the transferred land, but have used part of the land for the construction and development of office premises and infrastructure such as agricultural product storage and processing workshops; some other enterprises, seeing the “development opportunities” in large amounts of rural land, lease farmland on a large scale under the pretext of developing agriculture, but after receiving the transferred land, arbitrarily change the land use without authorization, building factories or developing commercial housing. In addition, some local governments, driven by the impulse for political achievements, issue policies encouraging industrial and commercial enterprises to lease land for operations in rural areas, attract investment without restrictions, and grant tax and land use preferences, bringing in industrial and commercial enterprises to lease farmers' land over large areas and for long periods. Some tolerate and cover up the non-agriculturalization and non-grainization behavior of industrial and commercial owners, and even collude with enterprises to obtain benefits, resulting in damage to farmers' interests.

The “non-agriculturalization” of land transfer not only easily triggers changes in rural land resources and brings turmoil to the overall ecological resources of rural areas, but also leads to damage to the interests of landless farmers. In response to this problem, in recent years the state has issued a series of relevant policies on regulating land transfer. The 2014 No. 1 Central Document proposed exploring the establishment of a risk guarantee fund system for industrial and commercial enterprises transferring agricultural land, and strictly prohibiting the non-agriculturalization of agricultural land. The “Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Management Rights and Developing Moderate-Scale Agricultural Operations” clearly proposed strengthening the regulation of land transfer uses. It is strictly prohibited to carry out non-agricultural construction in violation of regulations under the name of land transfer. It is strictly prohibited to build or disguisedly build tourist resorts, golf courses, villas, private clubs, etc. on transferred farmland. Resolutely investigate and deal with acts of illegal and irregular non-agricultural construction through “renting instead of expropriation”, and resolutely prohibit the arbitrary “non-agriculturalization” of farmland. These policies and documents point out the direction for curbing the “non-agriculturalization” of land transfer. At present and for a period to come, in order to prevent the tendency toward non-agriculturalization of land transfer, the state should implement the strictest system of economical land use, and in accordance with the requirements of “designating permanent basic farmland, establishing a protection and compensation mechanism, and ensuring that the total amount of basic farmland does not decrease, its use does not change, and its quality improves”, designate permanent basic farmland nationwide, strictly protect it, and allow no occupation; local governments must do a good job in supervision and verification, strictly control the flow direction of land, and effectively ensure that agricultural land is used for agriculture. Specifically, the following tasks should be done well:

First, improve the industrial and commercial capital access system. It is necessary to strengthen the prior review of industrial and commercial capital entering the rural market, focusing on reviewing whether industrial and commercial enterprises have lawful industrial and commercial registration, complete tax registration, and good credit; whether they have agricultural operation capacity commensurate with the scale of the transferred land; whether the project plan is standardized and scientific, and whether it conforms to the agricultural modernization development plan and the industrial layout of the region. When industrial and commercial capital enters, it must be clearly stated that the transferred land must not change the fundamental nature of agricultural land use, and must not engage in activities that damage the cultivated layer.

Second, strengthen risk prevention for industrial and commercial capital. After the qualifications of industrial and commercial enterprises have passed review, the land transfer service institution of the township to which they belong should guide both parties to sign a contract according to standardized requirements. The content of the contract must be clear and specific, and should record in detail necessary information such as the area, location, boundaries, and use of the transferred land. For transfers of 30 mu or more or with a transfer term of 10 years or more, special attention must be paid to industrial and commercial capital risks.

Third, improve the grassroots supervision mechanism for industrial and commercial capital. After commercial capital enters the rural market, in order to effectively ensure that the agricultural nature of the transferred land is not changed, regular supervision should be carried out over the project implementation, operations, and contract performance of industrial and commercial enterprises. Therefore, the grassroots supervision system should be more complete and the measures should be more specific. It is recommended to establish a supervision mechanism with the county-level agricultural administrative department and township people's governments as the main body, with the participation of the land and resources and industrial and commercial administrative departments, and with responsibility divided among counties, townships, and villages. If industrial and commercial enterprises use agricultural land in violation of the “non-agricultural” principle within the transfer period, the relevant departments and township people's governments should immediately issue a rectification notice and order rectification within a time limit. If rectification is not carried out within the time limit or is not thorough, the relevant support policies for land transfer that they enjoy may be canceled, and the legal responsibility of the enterprise's person in charge shall be pursued. At the same time, the specific division of labor among the departments of the supervision system must be implemented. The county-level administrative agricultural department is responsible for irregular dynamic supervision of the use of transferred land; the land and resources department supervises acts of transferring contracted land in violation of laws and regulations related to land management; the industrial and commercial administrative department is responsible for the routine supervision of the operating conditions of industrial and commercial enterprises.