Jiaoling County Explores the Path of Comprehensive Rural Reform
Slow agricultural development, difficulty in increasing farmers' incomes, and prominent rural conflicts…… these are common problems facing some rural areas in Guangdong. The root cause of these problems lies in the fact that grassroots social governance and institutional development struggle to adapt to social transformation and economic transition under the new circumstances.
Jiaoling County in Meizhou, which faces these same problems, has carried out a series of explorations for this purpose: advancing grassroots governance and reform in tandem. On one hand, by pushing forward the completion of rural land rights confirmation, it opened a breakthrough in comprehensive rural reform; on the other hand, it worked hard on grassroots governance innovation, building a governance system of “one core, three elements, four rights in sync, multi-tier co-governance” to stimulate the endogenous forces of rural areas, enabling farmers to become the subjects of governance, resolving social conflicts, and creating a stable social environment for reform and development.
The “Jiaoling exploration” of comprehensive rural reform has attracted widespread attention from experts and scholars. Last weekend, at the 10th China Rural Development Forum held in Jiaoling, experts, scholars, and government officials from across the country conducted in-depth deliberation on Jiaoling's innovations in comprehensive rural reform and governance.
Southern Daily reporters Zhang Xuebin, Tang Kaifeng
Ke Honghai, Tang Linzhen
Southern Rural Daily reporter Hu Xinke
Reporting from Jiaoling, Meizhou
Correspondents Tu Yongping, Huang Linsheng
Land rights confirmation basically completed in one year
The hardest part of comprehensive rural reform is land rights confirmation. Jiaoling delivered its answer in one year: the registration and certification work for 97 villages and 107,800 mu of land across the county has been completed, with a certification rate of over 98.0%
The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee established the direction of comprehensive rural reform. As a comprehensive rural reform demonstration site designated by the State Council, Jiaoling set out one year ago to pioneer a path for comprehensive rural reform through rural land rights confirmation work.
Advancing comprehensive rural reform, the most difficult and most critical task is land rights confirmation. Previously, Southern Daily reporters learned from interviews at many land rights confirmation demonstration sites that some areas complained about the excessively high cost of rights confirmation and certification, some areas found it difficult to mobilize the enthusiasm of the masses, some areas experienced slow progress due to land use rights disputes, and some areas were troubled by the inability to find people as large numbers of villagers had gone out to work……
Jiaoling also encountered similar difficulties. However, one year later, Jiaoling delivered its answer: the registration and certification work for 97 villages and 107,800 mu of land across the county has been completed, with a certification rate of over 98.0%, basically completing land rights confirmation work.
“How was it done?” many attendees asked. The approach of Zhaofu Village in Sanzhen Town perhaps answered everyone's doubts. Zhaofu Village has 22 village groups, with 722 households and a total of 2,685 people. As the largest administrative village in the town, Zhaofu Village was once regarded as the hardest “bone to gnaw.” “If this village's rights confirmation work is done well, other difficult problems will naturally be resolved.” Lu Yaosheng, member of the Standing Committee of the Jiaoling County Party Committee and Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission, told reporters that Jiaoling made Zhaofu Village the first pilot village.
Only openness and transparency can win villagers' support. Town and village cadres brought village group leaders, economic cooperative directors, villagers, and contractors together to conduct on-site measurements, and the rights confirmation results were publicly announced. When the masses raised opinions, they were immediately verified; once confirmed to be error-free and without objections, rights were confirmed and certificates issued. “Including ideological mobilization, rights confirmation, registration, and certification - all completed, by a quick count, exactly 3 months.”
Gnawing through the hard bone drove along a large area. In July 2013, Jiaoling officially launched land rights confirmation. As of the end of November this year, the registration and certification work for land contractual management rights on 110,000 mu of paddy fields across Jiaoling County has been basically completed.
“Completing land rights confirmation is only the first step; the most important thing is to let ordinary people gain tangible benefits through rights confirmation.” Lu Yaosheng said that for this purpose, Jiaoling simultaneously advanced other reforms, building a county-wide land trading platform so that confirmed land can circulate on a transparent platform, generating maximum economic benefits.
Luo Wenwei, a villager from Shifeng Village in Guangfu Town, knows this from personal experience. His family has over 4 mu of land. Before rights confirmation, the land could bring in about 1,000 yuan in annual rent. After rights confirmation, he rented the land to an agricultural company through the land trading center, and the annual rent rose to over 4,000 yuan. He also became an employee of the company, earning about 2,500 yuan per month in labor income during the busy farming season. During the slack season, he could also take odd jobs. “Now the whole family's annual gross income is 60,000 to 70,000 yuan, up 1/5 from last year.”
Introducing villager consultation and deliberation into rural governance
Currently, the 8 towns of Jiaoling County have established a total of 868 villager councils, mobilizing capable local notables to participate in village affairs discussion and governance, breaking the sole criterion of household registration for participation in deliberation
During visits to Sanzhen Town, multiple villages mentioned the same governance structure: the village consultation and deliberation assembly, the villagers' committee, and the village affairs supervision committee. This is precisely the “three elements” of the “one core, three elements, four rights in sync, multi-tier co-governance” advanced by Jiaoling.
The “one core” refers to the leadership of the village Party organization, meaning the village Party organization leads the mass organizations within the village, discusses the village's development plans, manages and supervises Party members and village group cadres, and collects public sentiment and opinions.
“Multi-tier governance” is the establishment of villager councils (villager groups) in natural villages, mobilizing capable local notables to participate in social governance and giving play to village governance functions.
With villager councils, villager groups, and the broad participation of farming households, villagers' four rights - decision-making, management, supervision, and election - develop in tandem. This is “four rights in sync.”
In Fangxin Village of Sanzhen Town, an ancestral house with dozens of rooms has been freshly painted, with a broad flat area and a clean fish pond in front, resembling a rural park. “These were all built with everyone's money!” 68-year-old Uncle Xu told reporters in Mandarin with a heavy Hakka accent that in recent years the village has installed streetlights and built a longevity park, all initiated and self-funded by the villagers.
According to statistics, the Fangxin Village villager council led the fundraising of a total of 1.46 million yuan in donations and completed 36 practical projects for people's livelihood for the village.
Currently, the 8 towns of Jiaoling County have established a total of 868 villager councils.
Chen Zuhuang, Director of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee's Rural Work Office, believes that this kind of villager council is a supplement to and improvement of villager self-governance.
Professor Xu Yong, Dean of the China Rural Research Institute at Central China Normal University, believes that Jiaoling's rural governance exploration is a rural governance reform based on rural endogenous needs and endogenous momentum. “In the past, rural affairs were mainly completed through top-down administrative forces, with insufficient villager participation.” Introducing villager consultation and deliberation into rural governance allows stakeholders to participate, breaking the sole criterion of household registration for participation in deliberation.
Professor Xu Xianglin, Chief Expert of the Economics Department of the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, spoke highly of “four rights in sync”: “Ordinary people should be informed about everything; they should contribute when they should, those with money donate more, those without money follow along and work. When ordinary people participate, they become enthusiastic.”
Zhu Lijia, Director of the Public Administration Teaching and Research Section at the Chinese Academy of Governance, believes that separating administration, decision-making, implementation, and supervision, with villagers participating together, forms a multi-party co-governance model that “truly makes farmers the subjects of governance.”
Solving loan difficulties to promote agricultural transformation
Based on the contract period signed between contractors and villagers, Jiaoling issues property rights circulation and transaction certification documents to contractors through the rural property rights trading service center, using rural land management rights as collateral for loans
Southern Daily reporters found during visits that Jiaoling's comprehensive rural reform encountered difficulties to varying degrees, and the reason these conflicts could be smoothly resolved is closely related to the simultaneously advanced rural governance innovation.
“In the past, when the government did things for ordinary people, it thought of many methods and did many practical things, but in some areas public satisfaction was not high. The reason is that many things were what the government wanted to do, and the masses often took a wait-and-see attitude.” Wang Yiyang, Director of the Guangdong Provincial Government Development Research Center, believes it is necessary to dare to delegate power to society and to the grassroots, activating the vitality of social organizations.
“Of Guangdong's social conflicts, 35% involve agriculture, and of agriculture-related conflicts, over 50% come from land. The conflicts facing grassroots social governance urgently require persistent efforts to advance reform.” Chen Zuhuang believes that many grassroots cadres think land rights confirmation will trigger social conflicts, but the explorations of Jiaoling and Yangshan prove otherwise. “They (Jiaoling and Yangshan) have an obvious characteristic - their grassroots governance innovation is done relatively well.”
Chen Weiming, County Mayor of Jiaoling County, frankly stated that behind the smooth progress of Jiaoling's reform is the indispensable simultaneously advanced grassroots governance innovation. Grassroots governance provided a stable environment for reform, and reform in turn stimulated the momentum for development.
Just last year, when reporters visited Jiaoling, they found that although many farmers had already carried out land circulation, due to lack of startup capital and rural financial loans being constrained by collateral requirements, many farm owners were frowning with worry.
For this purpose, on the basis of smoothly advancing land rights confirmation and circulation, Jiaoling focused on solving the rural loan problem. Lu Yaosheng stated that Jiaoling, based on the contract period signed between contractors and villagers, issues property rights circulation and transaction certification documents to contractors through the rural property rights trading service center, using rural land management rights as collateral for loans, successfully achieving a total of 300,000 yuan in collateral financing for agricultural business entities.
This greatly promoted agricultural transformation. Since the property rights trading center was established and began operating, it has facilitated 68 transactions including leading enterprises, family farms, and forest rights transfers, as well as rural financial credit services, involving over 11,000 mu of land.
Jiaoling's county-level economy also gained development momentum. In the first half of this year, Jiaoling County achieved a gross domestic product of 2.81 billion yuan, up 9.3%; added value of industrial enterprises above designated size of 450 million yuan, up 21.3%; public fiscal budget revenue of 190 million yuan, up 23.8%; and fixed asset investment of 1.1 billion yuan, up 39.8%.
“Although Jiaoling's comprehensive rural reform has achieved initial results, it still has great potential.” Wen Xiangfang, Secretary of the Jiaoling County Party Committee, stated that Jiaoling will, through solidly advancing comprehensive rural reform, develop ecological agriculture and the longevity industry, and release more production momentum.