Let the vital lever of land transfer be set in motion

"This training was worth attending. Right now the county is facing some difficulties in land transfer, so it's a good chance to ask for guidance and learn from experience." From March 26 to 31, during the third session of the national rotation training for directors of major agriculture, animal husbandry and fishery counties, the agriculture (rural economy) directors class, like the other participating directors, Wu Lili, director of the Agriculture Bureau of Jiaoling County, Guangdong Province, received a special research and discussion assignment. It was called a discussion, but in reality it was a search for solutions, and the theme was tightly tied to one keyword: land transfer.

In recent years, as large numbers of rural laborers have moved to cities, land transfer has become increasingly active, effectively resolving the difficult question of "who will farm the land." For the participating agriculture directors, what they face directly are the specific problems that arise in the transfer process: in advancing the confirmation, registration and certification of land rights, how should ownership disputes be resolved? How can new types of agricultural business entities be cultivated and transferred land be used flexibly? How should industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside be supervised to protect farmers' rights and interests? During the discussion, the trainees gave different local answers to these common problems.

Resolving land disputes requires keeping a "clear account"

"Rural land situations are complex. After the second round of land contracting, many villages made minor adjustments every 3 years and major adjustments every 5 years. When confirmation and registration was carried out, disputes and conflicts followed right along." Li Chunfeng, deputy director of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau of Bairin Left Banner, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, used his own troubles as his opening remarks.

Advancing the "separation of three rights" - collective land ownership, farmers' contracting rights and land management rights - and guiding orderly land transfer, land rights confirmation is the foundation. Nowadays, the work of confirming, registering and certifying land contracting and management rights is being rolled out across various regions. But the accompanying area disputes, measurement errors and historical legacy issues such as land reclamation and converted land have given the participating directors, who are setting out to find solutions, plenty to talk about.

"Among the villagers, the surviving old Party members and old cadres are the living land records of the countryside. They know very clearly whose land each plot is and how many mu it is, and they are good advisers and good assistants for the confirmation work." said Gai Yulin, director of the Rural Economic Development Bureau of Fumeng County, Liaoning Province.

Compared with Fumeng County, Yongqiao District of Suzhou City, as one of the first pilot areas in Anhui Province, seems to have moved a step faster in resolving historical legacy issues in a standardized way. Ma Gang, deputy director of the Agriculture Committee of Yongqiao District, introduced that during the confirmation process, the entire district sorted out 26 categories of problems involving more than 100 disputes and conflicts, and uniformly formulated handling opinions and standards, so that once a problem arises there are rules to follow and everything is clear.

Supporting new types of business entities with skillful use of "addition and subtraction"

Chen Jie, deputy director of the Agriculture Committee of Rongchang County, Chongqing, had just taken over agricultural work this year. In just a few short months, more and more new types of business entities coming to his door to "ask for policy" left him deeply puzzled. "Some come immediately after transferring land to ask for policy support and funding support. Should we give it or not?" This one sentence left the directors present deep in thought.

"What is land transferred for?" In the view of Li Mingju, senior agronomist at the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau of Zunyi County, Guizhou Province, achieving agricultural modernization is the ultimate goal of land transfer. Therefore, policy and funding support should be tilted toward those new types of business entities with good industrial development and strong demonstration and driving effects. For business entities that come from the very beginning purely for policy benefits, in principle there should be no support or only limited support.

The trainees unanimously agreed that supporting new types of business entities requires updating concepts and skillfully using "addition and subtraction," so that "potential high performers" stand out and opportunists retreat in the face of difficulty.

Industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside should have a firm grip on risk control

When land transfer was mentioned, what left the deepest impression on Wu Lili was that batch after batch of industrial and commercial capital came to Jiaoling, known as the "hometown of longevity," hoping to expand and share the "green cake." But then the problem came: more and more enterprises came to discuss investment, and Wu Lili felt uneasy: "What if the enterprises that come in do not 'farm' or blindly follow the trend into 'farming' and operate poorly?"

On the one hand, the government encourages industrial and commercial capital with funding and technological advantages to enter the agricultural sector; on the other hand, some enterprises going to the countryside to enclose land or invest blindly may bring hidden risks of disputes. How to solve the difficult problem of "seeing what cannot be managed, and managing what cannot be seen" became the focus of discussion among the trainees.

The industrial joint conference system from Xiangshan County, Zhejiang Province, was eye-catching. Led by the county's Agriculture and Forestry Bureau, and jointly with relevant departments such as land and finance, an industrial joint conference system was established. Major projects invested by industrial and commercial capital are reviewed at meetings, business operations are supervised through coordinated efforts, and violations are strictly punished. "The key to supervision lies in shared responsibility." summarized Lin Shuguang, director of the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau of Xiangshan County.