Nationwide, the area of rural land under large-scale management has reached 59.71 million mu
As of the end of October, the area of rural land transferred in Heilongjiang Province reached 65.07 million mu, an increase of 16.2% compared with last year. The area of rural land under large-scale management reached 59.71 million mu, an increase of 17.1% compared with last year.
Rural land transfer is progressing rapidly in provinces and municipalities across the country. According to incomplete statistics by a Caixin reporter, as of the end of 2013, the ratio of rural land transferred to household contracted cultivated land area was relatively high in provinces and municipalities such as Henan and Anhui, all exceeding 30%. Among them, Henan reached 32.16 million mu, and Anhui reached 20.1237 million mu. According to relevant statistics disclosed by the Ministry of Agriculture, as early as the end of 2012, the area of rural land transferred in Heilongjiang Province exceeded 40 million mu, accounting for 35.7% of household contracted cultivated land.
Nationwide, data from the Ministry of Agriculture show that as of the end of June 2014, the area of household contracted cultivated land transferred across the country was 380 million mu, accounting for 28.8% of the total household contracted cultivated land area, an increase of 20 percentage points over the end of 2008.
At the same time, the “Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Management Rights to Develop Moderate-Scale Agricultural Operations” (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions”), recently reviewed and approved by the central authorities, outlined the thinking for rural land transfer. The “Opinions” proposed that, on the premise of adhering to collective ownership of rural land, contracting rights and management rights should be separated, forming a pattern of separation of ownership, contracting rights and management rights into three rights, with the transfer of management rights, cultivating and supporting diversified new agricultural operating entities, and developing moderate-scale agricultural operations.
Rural land transfer mainly takes the forms of subcontracting, leasing, shareholding, transfer, and exchange, as well as four types: operations by specialized large households, cooperative operations, collective operations, and enterprise operations. On October 17, when publicly explaining the content of the “Opinions,” Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu said that in recent years rural land transfer has shown a trend of acceleration. Nationwide, inflows are mainly to farming households, but the proportion flowing to new agricultural operating entities such as cooperatives and leading enterprises is gradually rising; subcontracting between members of rural collective economic organizations is still the main form of transfer, but the proportion of transfer forms such as leasing and shareholding cooperation is rising relatively quickly.
The bottom line for rural land transfer in China is to ensure that transferred land is used for agricultural production, with key support for large-scale grain production. Data released by Heilongjiang Province also show that in the whole province, large growers (family farms) have driven grain production increases of about 8% through large-scale operations, and agricultural machinery cooperatives have driven grain production increases of about 15%, reaching a maximum of more than 20%, achieving sustained agricultural production increases.
The “Opinions” define large-scale rural land operations as “moderate scale.” At the same time, the document proposes requirements for key support in two situations, which can be regarded as an interpretation of “moderate scale,” namely, where the farming income from the scale of land operation is equivalent to income from work in the secondary and tertiary industries, and where the scale of land operation is equivalent to 10 to 15 times the local average contracted land area per household, key support will be given.
Han Changfu also mentioned that China has more than 200 million farming households, and small-scale farming households will still exist in large numbers for a long time to come. International experience shows that small- and medium-scale agricultural operators need to rely more on socialized service organizations to ensure market competitiveness. Socialized services include expanding agricultural technology extension, animal and plant disease prevention, agricultural product quality and safety supervision, and carrying out pilot programs for government purchases of agricultural public welfare services.