After rural land enters the market, who can become the new owner of rural land?
The “Four Comprehensives” strategic layout mentions “comprehensively deepening reform.” How to advance rural land reform has drawn attention. Around “rural land,” deputies and commissioners put forward numerous motions and proposals. The government work report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council also pointed out that work on land rights confirmation, registration and certification must be done well, and that pilot reforms must be carried out prudently in rural land expropriation, market entry of collectively operated construction land, the homestead system, and the collective property rights system. In February this year, 33 pilot counties (cities, districts) including Daxing District of Beijing were included in the pilot program for rural collectively operated construction land. In the view of CPPCC National Committee member Wen Simei, “rural land market entry” can increase farmers' income, but it “must not be rushed.”
How will rural land enter the market?
Wen Simei, a CPPCC National Committee member and agricultural economist, introduced to a Beijing Youth Daily reporter yesterday that rural land transfer involves two aspects: one is agricultural land, and the other is construction land. The transfer of construction land is also divided into two parts: on the one hand, farmers' homestead land, and on the other hand, rural collective construction land, especially the land formed after new rural construction, land consolidation, and village renovation. National policy stipulates that the policy of equal rights and equal prices for the same land should be adopted, that is, it should be the same as state-owned land, enter the local market for transfer, and adopt a market-based approach.
Niu Dun, a CPPCC National Committee member and Vice Minister of Agriculture, said that China's rural modernization development must raise rural labor productivity. A single farming household working 9 mu of land alone has low efficiency. Only by concentrating land for intensive management and using large agricultural machinery can there be a chance to raise labor productivity. In addition, rural areas also have other types of land such as homestead land and business construction land, and transferring it out creates conditions for changing the mode of operation.
To this end, last year China launched an innovative pilot that breaks through legal provisions: the transfer of “rural business construction land,” to be evaluated after 3 years and, if feasible, promoted nationwide.
“After homestead land undergoes land consolidation and village renovation, some of it lies idle and unused, failing to realize the value of the land. Here a systematic policy needs to be formulated, and even legal adjustments made, so that it can enter the local market for transactions, become part of collective assets, and also increase farmers' income.” Wen Simei said.
What are the effects of the land transfer pilot?
In response to issues such as land expropriation, market entry of rural business construction land, and rural land transfer, the central government has officially issued a document selecting 33 county-level units nationwide for reform pilots. These reform pilots must break through certain current legal provisions. The State Council has officially submitted a request to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, asking it, according to the needs of the pilots, to authorize within the scope of these 33 pilot counties, for a certain period, adjustments to the enforcement of these legal provisions.
Through the pilots, it will finally be determined to temporarily break through legal provisions, allowing these places, after 3 years of temporary non-enforcement, to conduct a comprehensive assessment to see whether such a breakthrough better meets actual needs and is more conducive to economic development, and on that basis to amend the current legal provisions. Chen Xiwen, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC National Committee and deputy head of the Central Rural Work Leading Group, explained that if the results of the comprehensive assessment hold that doing so may bring greater problems, then enforcement of the current provisions will continue to be restored.
Relevant departments have carried out nationwide work on confirming, registering and certifying farmers' land contract management rights, including Shandong Province, Anhui Province and Sichuan Province. These 3 provinces carried out pilots across the whole province.
It is understood that roughly more than 95% of county-level units with rural areas are carrying out pilots, involving 340 million mu of land, and land contract management right certificates have been issued to farmers. Under such circumstances, land transfer is also accelerating. According to statistics from relevant departments at the end of June 2014, the total area of rural land management rights transferred nationwide was about 380 million mu, accounting for 28.8%. The number of farming households that transferred part or all of their land for use was close to 60 million, accounting for 26% of all contracted farming households, and this process is gradually moving forward.
Promoting the development of modern agriculture through land transfer “must not be rushed.” Wen Simei believes that first we must do the basic work well, define farmers' land rights more clearly and strictly, and provide genuine legal protection. However, Wen Simei believes that in land rights confirmation and certification, there are still some issues worth discussing.
⟦NL> “The current land rights confirmation and certification is still based on our past contract system and fragmented land division.” He believes Guangdong's experience is relatively good: rights confirmation and certification are only on the share of land, not on which specific field. “This makes transfer easier.”
What changes may occur in farmers' future lives?
In the future, what will farmers' lives become? Wen Simei believes that the exploration in the Chengdu area regarding “professional farmers” and “professional farmer managers” is very good experience.
The skilled growers who remain in rural Chengdu have become what Wen Simei calls “professional farmers,” and behind them are cooperatives or rural enterprises. “In fact, it is a person who has funds and is willing to invest in operating agriculture, but does not understand how to operate it, so he invites professional farmers from the village to help operate it.” Wen Simei explained.
Urban development policy is also gradually moving in the same direction as rural development. Wen Simei said that what status farmers have after entering the city is still not clear, but perhaps farmers in the future will not necessarily have to become city people.
Wen Simei said, “When I went to the outskirts of Chengdu to look, a farmer told me that he worked and lived in the town, and his child also went to school in the city. He was willing to be a farmer, and the village land was either operated by him or entrusted to someone else to operate.” Wen Simei felt that “this is a pretty good setup.”
“Farmers should be given more room for choice.” He told a Beijing Youth Daily reporter that China used to have barriers separating urban and rural areas, and farmers had barriers to choice. In the future this boundary may be further diluted. In fact, in the end it is a process of urban-rural coordination and integration.
When asked by reporters how to ensure cultivated land and food security, Wen Simei said, “Our land policy implements use management. As long as the cultivated land issue is tightly controlled and farmers' rights and interests are firmly safeguarded, there is no fear of encroachment by urban capital.” In this process, cultivated land protection remains the country's basic national policy. In summary, at the macro level it is how the state ensures cultivated land, at the intermediate level it is the protection of farmers' rights and interests, and under these conditions, the issue of how urban and rural areas can integrate and develop in a coordinated way must be considered.
Who may become the “new owner” of rural land?
News of rural land entering the market has also drawn attention from the real estate industry. Who will be the new owner of rural land entering the market? Now that “rural land market entry” is being piloted, does it mean developers and various enterprises can buy land through cheaper channels? Will this rural land also trigger changes in housing prices?
The pilot in Daxing District of Beijing on rural land expropriation, market entry of collectively operated construction land, and reform of the homestead system was recently launched. Taking this as an example, on the 8th, Li Shixiang, a deputy to the National People's Congress and Executive Vice Mayor of Beijing, said in an interview with reporters after the plenary meeting of the Beijing delegation to the National People's Congress that market entry of collective land in pilot townships in Daxing District will be operated in a market-based way, and the targets will not be limited to rural household registration, but residential construction will be strictly controlled.
“After this part of land enters the market, to whom will it be transferred? Is it limited to transfers among farmers?” On this question, Li Shixiang said that transfer is not limited to farmers; it will follow a market-based approach. However, after rural land enters the market, it will still mainly be used to develop industries, with more consideration given to farmers' employment and industrial income growth, and it will not be used for housing.
Who the new owners of rural land will be after market entry in the future is still uncertain. It is understood that the business construction land allowed to enter the market in this pilot will mostly be used for industrial land development, and homestead land is still not allowed to be freely traded.
Wen Simei, a CPPCC National Committee member and agricultural economics expert, told a Beijing Youth Daily reporter that influencing and lowering housing prices is not the main issue considered by the state in formulating policies related to land transfer. What the state mainly considers is, on the premise of ensuring cultivated land, improving rural land use efficiency and increasing farmers' income.