Ministry of Agriculture Launches Second Batch of Rural Reform Pilot Projects, Focusing on Land System Reform
On December 1, the Ministry of Agriculture, together with the Central Rural Work Leading Group Office, the Central Organization Department and other member units of the Joint Conference on Rural Reform Pilot Areas, issued the "Reply on the Second Batch of Rural Reform Pilot Areas and Pilot Tasks," with a total of 34 counties and cities across the country set to participate in this round of reform pilots.
21st Century Business Herald reporters learned that the Ministry of Agriculture arranged pilot tasks in 14 areas in total. Among them, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, which has years of exploration experience in rural land reform, will carry out pilots in 7 areas, becoming one of the regions shouldering the most pilot tasks.
Meanwhile, Meitan County, Guizhou Province, which participated in China's first round of rural reform pilots in 1987, will conduct a pilot in "management of the transfer of rural land contractual management rights."
Pilots Focus on Land System Reform
China's first round of rural reform began in 1987, with a total of 21 pilot areas nationwide, including Meitan County, Guizhou Province. After the Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee proposed the major deployment of vigorously advancing reform and innovation and strengthening rural institutional development, the 2011 Central "No. 1 Document" set out clear requirements for doing a good job in rural reform pilot area work under the new circumstances. Thereafter, the Ministry of Agriculture took the lead in promoting the second round of rural reform pilots, and in January 2012 approved 24 counties and cities to undertake the first batch of pilot tasks.
The tasks at that time were carried out around the 6 points of opinion on rural reform put forward at the Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee, namely: stabilizing and improving the basic rural operating system, improving the strict and standardized rural land management system, improving the agricultural support and protection system, establishing a modern rural financial system, establishing a system promoting the integration of urban and rural economic and social development, and improving the rural democratic management system.
Zhang Hongyu, Director of the Department of Rural Economic System and Management of the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the second round of reform aims to eliminate the institutional obstacles of the urban-rural dual structure and the deep-seated contradictions constraining rural and agricultural economic development, and to coordinate the advancement of industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization.
⟦NL> The 34 counties and cities approved on December 1, 2014 are the second batch of pilot areas in the second round of rural reform. At the same time, the Ministry of Agriculture also added new pilot content on the basis of the 2012 pilot tasks, including 5 areas, namely deepening rural land system reform, improving the agricultural support and protection system, establishing a modern rural financial system, deepening reform of the rural collective property rights system, and improving rural governance mechanisms. There are 19 detailed pilot items in total, 7 of which involve reform of the rural land system.
The Ministry of Agriculture stated that with the launch of the second batch of rural reform pilot areas and the determination of pilot tasks, the number of rural reform pilot areas under the new circumstances has reached 58, covering 28 provinces (regions, municipalities) across the country. The pilot content covers all major areas of rural reform, and a relatively complete reform pilot work system has basically taken shape.
On November 29, Vice Premier Wang Yang of the State Council, while attending the Rural Reform Pilot Area Work Exchange Meeting in Hefei, said that rural reform pilot areas are a comprehensive platform for advancing rural reform pilot experiments, and efforts should be focused on actively exploring rural land systems, agricultural support and protection systems, rural financial systems, rural collective property rights systems and rural governance, striving to produce a set of replicable and promotable experiences.
Chengdu Will Undertake 7 Pilot Tasks
The "Reply on the Second Batch of Rural Reform Pilot Areas and Pilot Tasks" obtained by 21st Century Business Herald reporters shows that Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, will carry out pilots in 7 areas including the pilot for withdrawal from land contractual management rights, becoming one of the regions shouldering the most pilot tasks.
Chen Jiaze, a rural land issues expert and former vice president of the Chengdu Academy of Social Sciences, told 21st Century Business Herald reporters that Chengdu is shouldering 7 tasks because it has accumulated years of experience in rural land reform, for example, it is already ahead of the rest of the country in the progress of rural land rights confirmation and certification.
However, there is still considerable room for exploration in the pilot tasks that Chengdu is participating in this time. For example, for the "pilot for withdrawal from land contractual management rights" that Chengdu will undertake this time, Chen Jiaze said that if management rights are to truly achieve "withdrawal," a more advanced guarantee system for the citizenization of migrant workers needs to be established. "Chengdu allows farmers to settle in cities with their land contractual management rights, which requires the government to provide a consideration system compatible with land contractual management rights, so that farmers voluntarily withdraw from land management."
Chen Jiaze said that for local governments, if "withdrawal from land contractual management rights" is combined with the citizenization of migrant workers, it means a relatively high level of financial support is required.
According to research by the research group led by Chen Jiaze: the various public resource inputs required for a migrant worker to transform from a farmer into an urban resident mainly include public infrastructure, social security, compulsory education, medical and health care, employment services, housing security and public security, culture and sports, and other fields. With other conditions unchanged, the incremental fiscal expenditure required for each additional urban registered population in Chengdu is 168,000 yuan.
In addition to the above-mentioned "pilot for withdrawal from land contractual management rights," the pilot tasks Chengdu will also undertake are: pilot for management of the transfer of land contractual management rights, pilot for deepening reform of the collective forest rights system, pilot for improving agricultural subsidy methods, pilot for target price insurance for agricultural products such as grain and live pigs, pilot for building rural grassroots Party organizations such as farmers' cooperatives, family farms, and village-to-community transitions, and pilot for villager self-governance at the level of rural communities and villager groups. In addition, Sichuan Province also has Pengshan County, Bazhong City and Neijiang City participating in the second round of pilots.
Meitan County, Guizhou Province, will participate in this round of pilots for management of land management rights transfer. The "Meitan County Land Contractual Management Rights Transfer Management Pilot Plan" obtained by 21st Century Business Herald reporters shows that Meitan County will first explore establishing land management companies with village collective economic organizations, achieving large-scale land transfer through land consolidation, independent operation, investment promotion and other forms, and supporting farmers in setting up land share cooperatives by contributing land contractual management rights as shares.
Regarding this round of pilots, Yuan Haisheng, Director of the Meitan Rural Reform Pilot Office, told 21st Century Business Herald reporters that in 2015 Meitan County will also carry out land rights confirmation and certification work to prepare for future pilots in rural property rights mortgages.