The ban on converting farmland to non-agricultural use is here: what benefits can farmers enjoy?
Li Keqiang: “Hold the red line of farmland, fully carry out the work of designating permanent basic farmland, and implement actions to protect and improve farmland quality. Do a good job in land rights confirmation, registration and certification, and prudently carry out pilot reforms such as rural land expropriation, market entry of collective operating construction land, the homestead system, and the collective property rights system. In the reform, it is necessary to ensure that the quantity of farmland does not decrease, its quality does not decline, and farmers' interests are safeguarded.”
As Premier Li Keqiang said in his government work report: “The quantity of farmland does not decrease, its quality does not decline, and farmers' interests are safeguarded.” This is the fundamental guarantee of our country's food quality and safety, but with the rapid development of our country's industrialization and urbanization, in the process of land transfer in some places, the phenomena of “non-agriculturalization” and “non-grainization” of farmland have become more and more serious, even threatening our country's food security.
It cannot be denied that the development of modern agriculture cannot do without the support and participation of industrial and commercial capital. Under the broader context of our country's economic development entering the “new normal,” how should farmland be transferred reasonably? How should farmers' contract rights be determined? These are still practical issues worth discussing. On this, the view of Kong Xiangzhi, vice president of the China Agricultural Technical Economics Association and vice dean of the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University of China, is: strictly control industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside, and let farmers truly enjoy the land dividend.
Banning the “non-agriculturalization” of farmland: institutional guarantees are fundamental
From the situation understood at present, it is indeed the case that after land transfer in many places there is a tendency toward “non-agricultural and non-grain” use. According to incomplete statistics, 30% to 80% of our country's transferred land is used for growing fruit and flowers, and for developing high-efficiency agriculture and facility agriculture; some is also used to build graves, houses, kilns, run enterprises, or develop public welfare undertakings. This is bound to break through the red line of 1.8 billion mu of farmland and bring hidden dangers to national food security. Kong Xiangzhi believes: transferring land for the development of large-scale operations requires attention to methods, and “non-agricultural” transfer will certainly be banned.
Kong Xiangzhi: “We also found in our investigations that some enterprises do indeed transfer land, and some have this “non-agriculturalization” phenomenon. For example, in the suburbs of Beijing, some enterprises go to rural areas to transfer dozens or hundreds of mu of land, run farmhouse leisure businesses and picking gardens, and may build a restaurant. From the perspective of the Land Administration Law, this is illegal. However, some local policies now allow land transfers above a certain area to be given a few percent of construction land, and then there is no problem. So generally speaking, at present it is some large enterprises building some houses that are hard to restore or cannot be restored. This is a phenomenon we should pay attention to in the next step of land transfer.”
⟦NL> Banning the “non-agriculturalization” of farmland: strengthening supervision is key
Transforming traditional agriculture and developing modern agriculture, the entry of industrial and commercial capital into agriculture is an inevitable trend. But bosses going to the countryside should drive fellow villagers, not replace them, and especially must not touch the bottom line of farmland “non-agriculturalization.” Kong Xiangzhi pointed out that it is necessary to strengthen access supervision over industrial and commercial enterprises leasing farmers' contracted land in the countryside, strengthen control over the use of transferred land, and strictly prohibit “non-agriculturalization” construction under the name of land transfer.
Kong Xiangzhi: “Someone must supervise this process. Normal use, of course, is no problem. If once hotels or buildings that cannot be restored appear, that should be banned. From my personal investigations, local land management departments investigate very strictly, including many agricultural machinery cooperatives' machinery sheds, all of which were demolished. Speaking of it, farmers should also build a machinery shed, but from the perspective of land transfer, it must be strict.”
Banning the “non-agriculturalization” of farmland: information disclosure is the key point
According to the provisions of our country's Rural Land Contracting Law, farming households have the right to decide independently according to law whether and how the land contractual management right is transferred. But in the practice of land transfer in many places in our country, villagers' groups, villagers' committees, and even township governments and county and district governments can also decide on the transfer. Especially when attracting investment, some county and township governments sign land transfer agreements with outside investors without the authorization of farming households. This kind of “forced transfer” deprives farming households of their right to participate, consult, and supervise. Kong Xiangzhi believes that our country's land transfer should adopt the principle that the market determines the price and the legal system safeguards farming households.
Kong Xiangzhi: “First, the determination of price is a market-based behavior. Of the country's more than 3,000 counties, roughly more than 2,000 have transfer markets centered on county land transfer service centers. Some villages even have information stations; when you turn on the computer, all kinds of content appear. The more open the information, the more beneficial it is for protecting farmers' rights and interests. Therefore, emphasizing information disclosure is all pointed. Second, no person, organization, or institution is allowed to force farmers to transfer land, so in this way, whether I transfer or not is still my own business. This is my right, and protecting farmers' rights should be done in this way.”