What trends and new characteristics does land transfer show under the new situation?

First, we need to understand what land transfer is. Land transfer refers to the transfer of land use rights. The transfer of land use rights means that farming households holding land contractual management rights transfer the land management right (use right) to other farming households or economic organizations, that is, retaining the contract right and transferring the use right. In other words, on the basis of keeping the land contract right unchanged, farming households transfer part or all of the land contracted from the village collective to a third party for management under certain conditions. Land transfer helps promote farmers' property income growth.

In 2014, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Management Rights and Developing Moderate-Scale Agricultural Operations," and issued a notice requiring all regions and departments to earnestly implement it in light of actual conditions. The "Opinions" require vigorous development of land transfer and moderate-scale operations, and completion of the confirmation of contract management rights within five years. The invisible market for rural construction land is active and has huge profit space. This requires us, after obtaining land, to do a good job in agricultural planning according to local actual conditions, and only by drafting a feasible agricultural planning report can we possibly apply to the government for a certain amount of construction land, which will greatly enhance the value of the land. Within the land contract term, agricultural land may transfer contract rights through subcontracting, assignment, shareholding, cooperation, leasing, exchange, and other methods, and farmers are encouraged to transfer contracted land to specialized large households, cooperative farms, and agricultural parks to develop large-scale agricultural operations. Collective construction land may be transferred through cooperation, shareholding, joint operation, conversion, and other methods of land use rights, and collective construction land is encouraged to concentrate in towns and industrial parks. The key points are: on the basis of not changing the basic system of household contract management, introduce the shareholding system into the land system construction, establish a rural share cooperation system with land as the main content, change farmers' contracted land from physical form to value form, let some farmers obtain equity and then engage in secondary and tertiary industries with peace of mind; another part of farmers can expand the scale of land operations and realize the transformation of suburban agriculture from traditional to modern.

⟦NL> As the government's guidance and service functions for rural land transfer gradually strengthen, at present, the behavior of rural land transfer is gradually becoming standardized, mainly reflected in three aspects: first, from the past spontaneous transfer mainly between farmers, and between operators and farmers, to the current transformation toward autonomous transfer that gives equal weight to government and market guidance and spontaneity; second, from the past unpaid cultivation on behalf of others to paid transfer according to market rules; third, from the past non-standard transfer relying on oral agreements to standardized transfer with written agreements. At the same time, the process of land transfer is accelerating, and the scale is increasing year by year. The increasing standardization of land transfer depends on institutional innovation and breakthroughs: first, establish a rural land property rights trading market. Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province, by issuing land use property rights certificates to farmers, establishing a rural land property rights trading market, and advancing the construction of rural cooperatives, has embarked on a new path of rural land reform under the premise of the "three unchangeables" of land ownership, contract rights, and agricultural land nature. Second, the government standardizes transfer behavior. At the same time, it produces and provides farmers with different model contract texts such as unified transfer, subcontracting, leasing, exchange, and transfer authorization letters. It clarifies some rights, obligations, and liability for breach of contract that may be involved by both parties to the transfer. Third, improve the arbitration and mediation mechanism for land transfer disputes.

Land transfer in the new period shows new characteristics:

First, the transfer speed is accelerating and gradually taking shape. The speed of transfer of land contract management rights is increasing year by year, the transferred land area is continuously expanding, and the number of households involved is continuously increasing. Up to now, the proportion of transferred land area to total cultivated land area is as low as 5% and as high as more than 15%, with an average proportion of about 8%, and the number of households involved in land transfer accounts for about 26% of the total number of households.

Second, the types of transfer are diverse, with uneven proportions. According to different standards, the transfer of land contract management rights can be divided into various different types.

(1) Using the transfer subject as the standard, it can be divided into transfer between farmers and village committees and transfer between farmers and farmers. Among them, transfer between farmers and farmers is the main form, accounting for about 90% of the total transferred area.

(2) Using the transfer object as the standard, it can be divided into transfer of contract management rights for responsibility fields, transfer of contract management rights for flexible fields, and transfer of contract management rights for three types of wasteland. Among them, transfer of contract management rights for responsibility fields is the main form, accounting for about 96% of the total transferred area.

(3) Using the transfer method as the standard, it can be divided into subcontracting, leasing, exchange, assignment, share investment or participation in share cooperation, and other methods of transfer. Among them, subcontracting is the main form, accounting for more than about 70% of the total transferred area. Within subcontracting, the majority is farmers who go out to work or do business subcontracting their land to relatives, friends, or other farmers in the same village. In addition, there are also forms in which farmers subcontract land to large planting and breeding households, and collectives lease land back from farmers and then subcontract it.

(4) Using whether an agreement is signed for the transfer as the standard, it can be divided into transfer with agreement and transfer without agreement. Among them, households with agreement transfer are slightly dominant, accounting for about 65% of the total number of transferring households. Agreement transfer is further divided into written agreement transfer and oral agreement transfer. Among them, oral agreement transfer accounts for the vast majority of agreement transfer, and households signing written agreement transfer account for less than 10% of total transferring households.

(5) Using whether the transfer is paid as the standard, it can be divided into paid transfer and unpaid transfer. Among them, unpaid transfer is the main form, accounting for more than about 60% of total transferring households.

(6) Using whether the transfer fulfills the procedures of approval, filing, or handling the change registration of land use right certificates as the standard, it can be divided into approved transfer, filed transfer, registered transfer, and self-initiated transfer. Among them, self-initiated transfer is the main form, accounting for 95% of the total transferred area.

Third, transfer behavior lacks standardization and management. Transfer behavior is seriously non-standard, manifested as many self-initiated transfers, few approvals and filings, and even fewer applications for change registration; many oral agreements, few written agreements; many unclear agreements, few clear agreements; many written agreements with non-standard content, few standard ones, and so on. Some villages have chain transfer, where households receiving transferred land then transfer their own enjoyed land contract management rights to other households, forming chain-style transfer. Towns and villages generally lack strict and standardized management of land contract management rights transfer behavior. Fourth, some cultivated land has been non-agriculturalized, and a very small number of illegal transfer behaviors exist. Some cultivated land has been converted to non-agricultural uses, mainly for investment promotion, industrial parks, small town construction, and other projects. The vast majority of this construction land has fulfilled approval procedures, and a small part has not been approved. In order to complete tasks such as industrial development, relevant towns, in the name of the town government or land-using units, adopt the method of leasing from farmers to transfer land use rights under their own names for non-agricultural construction.

In any case, land transfer in the new period should follow the following basic principles: first, adhere to the principle of ensuring ownership, stabilizing contract rights, and invigorating use rights; second, safeguard farmers' rights and interests and adhere to the principle of "voluntary, compensated, and lawful"; third, adhere to the principle of optimal allocation of land resources and optimal combination of land with other production factors; fourth, adhere to the principle of protecting cultivated land with priority protection of basic farmland. Only in this way can the smooth progress of land transfer be guaranteed.

Land transfer is determined by the economic laws of transformation from individual economy to socialized production. Accelerating the transfer of rural land contract management rights, optimizing the allocation of rural land resources, and actively promoting intensive and large-scale land operations are the objective requirements of developing modern agriculture, a realistic path to improve agricultural scale efficiency, promote agricultural efficiency, increase farmers' income, and promote rural development, and also an inevitable choice for adapting to the acceleration of rural labor transfer, guiding various market entities to invest in efficient agriculture, and advancing the construction of a new socialist countryside.