What are the methods for realizing land transfer in traditional agricultural villages?
Land transfer has provided favorable conditions for the “capital era” of Chinese agriculture and is an important institutional arrangement for realizing agricultural modernization. Overall, there are differences in the temporal distribution of farmers' land transfer in China, from a smaller scale at the time of reform and opening up to a gradual increase in scale; at the macro spatiotemporal scale, it shows a characteristic of diffusion from the eastern and central regions to the western region; at the micro scale, it shows a gradual diffusion trend from the urban-rural fringe to agricultural areas near town centers, outer suburban agricultural areas, and traditional agricultural areas. As China's market economy system continues to improve, how can a rural land factor transfer market be established and perfected, and the rational transfer and effective allocation of agricultural production factors be promoted? This is the question that this article, based on the perspective of traditional agricultural villages and combined with an analysis of the survey situation in Tuqiao Village, will answer.
I. Survey of Land Transfer in Tuqiao Village
1. Basic situation of the research subject
Tuqiao Village is located in the western part of Yongxing County seat, 40 kilometers from the county seat, with an administrative area of 2.4 sq km. It has four natural villages——Tuqiao Village, Shijie Village, Andong Village, and Luoling Village——and 17 villager groups. The village has a total population of 2,000 people and 486 farming households, including 30 non-agricultural households, with an agricultural population of 800 people and a labor resource count of 800 people. It has a total cultivated land area of 700 mu (490 mu of paddy fields and 210 mu of dry land) and 3,800 mu of forest land. The main crops include rice, tobacco leaves, sweet potatoes, peanuts, and rapeseed. The planting area of single-season rice is 100 mu, and the planting area of double-season rice is 300 mu (including tobacco leaves). The main crop output is about 10 million per year. Before land transfer, grain crops accounted for more than two-thirds of the entire planting area, and it was a most ordinary and typical traditional agricultural village.
The agricultural structure was single and the benefits were low. Tuqiao Village's cultivated land was not extensive to begin with, and in addition the grain-to-cash crop structure was seriously imbalanced. Traditional grain crops such as rice and sweet potatoes had always occupied a dominant position, especially with a large rice planting area accounting for more than 2/3 of the total cultivated land area, and it was the pillar on which the vast majority of farming households depended for survival. Before land transfer, the total planting area of cash crops such as tobacco leaves, rapeseed, and peanuts was less than 100 mu. Emphasizing grain and neglecting cash crops, along with an imbalanced industrial structure, was one of the important reasons for the overall slow economic development of the village.
Water conservancy facilities were old and backward. Of the four natural villages, only two had running water. The village had no water storage tank and only a few mountain ponds and one deep well, and agricultural water use was mainly solved by stream water flowing down from Youma Village. The vast majority of drinking water for people and livestock in the whole village depended on earth wells dug by the villagers themselves, and it could not be guaranteed in drought years. The whole village had no irrigation facilities and no irrigated land, and farming depended on the weather, directly affecting the villagers' production and life.
Secondary and tertiary industries were seriously lagging. The village had no commerce or agricultural product processing industry at all, and only one quarry opened in 2010, with an enterprise output value of about seven or eight million, a total of 30 employees, and taxes paid of 30,000 to 40,000 yuan per year, affecting and driving the employment of about 30 farming households. Before land transfer, the total income of the villagers in the village was about 14.58 million yuan per year, and the per capita net income reached 7,290 yuan per year, of which 65% came from land output, secondary and tertiary industries were almost nonexistent, income from working outside accounted for about 30%, and other income accounted for about 5%.
The loss of young and middle-aged labor was serious. Tuqiao Village had about 800 laborers, among whom 650 were young and middle-aged laborers, and of these 650, 400 worked outside the village year-round. The impact of young and middle-aged people going out to work as a whole caused young farmers to lose agricultural skills, and advantageous industries were difficult to sustain. The dispersal of the village's core strength left rural local entrepreneurship blank and caused it to lose the vitality and momentum for sustainable development.
2. Actual land transfer situation
Tuqiao Village began land transfer in October 2012. Farmers transferred the cultivated land allocated to them uniformly to the Tuqiao Village Ecological Agriculture Professional Cooperative established in the village, with a total of 700 mu of cultivated land transferred. The cooperative then transferred the vast majority of the cultivated land to large outside growers and a small portion to large local growers, with contracts signed every 5 years. The cultivated land was transferred out in the form of leasing, with a transfer fee of 100 yuan/mu. Of the 3,800 mu of forest land, because 800 mu was collective land of the group and was not transferred out, the remaining 3,000 mu was all transferred and contracted in 2012 to Hunan Zhonglian Tiandi Tea Oil Development Company, with a contracting period of 42 years. The forest land transfer fee was 18 yuan/mu, paid every 5 years. The land transfer contract did not reflect the location of the transfer, but it did state the area, price, payment method, term, rights and obligations of both parties, liquidated damages, and methods for resolving disputes. The government also provided financial subsidies for land transfer, with a government subsidy of 20 yuan per mu of land, half of which belonged to the farmers and half of which was incorporated into the village cooperative as collective funds.
After land transfer, the village began large-scale planting of flue-cured tobacco, and it was expected that by 2014 the planting area would develop to 300 mu. After land transfer, the vast majority of the labor force in the whole village went out to work. By the end of 2013, the village had plowed 260 mu of cultivated land, built 2 main water conservancy channels (totaling 1,400 m), and built machine farming roads for the main cultivated land (7 km in total, costing 170,000), covering 80% of the cultivated land area, fully improving rural production conditions, perfecting agricultural infrastructure construction, and raising the villagers' living standards.
II. Analysis of the Survey Results of Land Transfer in Tuqiao Village
1. Farmers' enthusiasm for farming was generally low
Most studies regard farmers' attachment to the land as the main factor in farming households transferring land. However, based on the field survey in Tuqiao Village, this article reached the opposite conclusion. Because agricultural production has the characteristic of uneven labor time input, in the busy farming season a large amount of labor input is needed, while in the non-busy farming season farmers' work is relatively easy. In addition, due to the village's water conservancy conditions, most land could only be used to plant single-season rice. Therefore, before land transfer, most farming households, especially those with sufficient labor, chose to work part-time in nearby county towns during the slack season. The large number of farmers going out meant that grain production on farmland, which originally relied entirely on intensive human input, lacked labor, and they had to adopt extensive management models for agricultural production, with some land even left abandoned as a result.
In this survey, regarding the ability to cultivate land, 12% of people chose that they did not understand farming techniques, only 17% chose that they knew only a little about farming techniques, 11% chose that they were familiar with farming procedures but had to cultivate alone under others' guidance, and 60% chose that they could cultivate independently. Among young people under 30 years old, the proportion who did not understand farming techniques was 87%.
Attitude toward cultivating land. 8% of people chose never to farm, 41% chose not to farm themselves, 25% chose that it did not matter whether they farmed or not, and 26% chose that they were willing to farm themselves.
Thoughts on transferring land. 16% of people chose voluntary transfer, 50% chose agreeing to transfer under appropriate government guidance, and 34% chose following the crowd and being passively transferred. No one chose being unwilling to transfer.
The function of land. 8% of people chose that land could obtain relatively good economic returns and meet the need to become wealthy, 17% chose that land's economic returns were average and could only meet general living needs, 66% chose that land's economic returns were relatively low and could only ensure food and clothing, and 9% chose that in the event of natural or man-made disasters, land could not even solve the problem of food and clothing.
Reasons for transferring land. 16% of people chose hoping the government would therefore build water conservancy facilities and that the land transferee could plow farmland, improve agricultural production conditions, and improve soil quality; 14% chose insufficient labor; 8% chose that the contracted land was too scattered; 42% chose low land management benefits; 15% chose long-term work outside and no time to attend to it; and 5% chose that no one in the family was willing to do farm work anymore and they transferred only to avoid leaving the fields abandoned.