Rural collective land will implement the separation of ownership rights, contract rights and management rights into three distinct rights

CNR News, Beijing, October 18 (Reporter Shen Jingwen) According to China National Radio's "News and Newspaper Digest" report, recently the central authorities reviewed and approved the "Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Transfer of Rural Land Management Rights to Develop Moderately Scaled Agricultural Operations". Regarding the transfer of rural land management rights and scaled operations, the "Opinions" propose separating rural collective land ownership rights, contract rights and management rights into “three distinct rights”, further deepening the reform of the rural land system.

Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu explained that in most regions, the conditions for separating contract rights from management rights have also basically matured.

Han Changfu: At the beginning of the land contract reform, ownership and contract rights were separated for the first time, which both mobilized the enthusiasm of farming households and ensured that collective ownership of land remained unchanged. On this basis, we should further promote the separation of land contract rights and management rights, implement the “three distinct rights” of rural land ownership rights, contract rights and management rights, and transfer land management rights in an orderly manner. This will both invigorate land management rights and safeguard the rights of contracted farming households.

Compared with the past rural land system, the "Opinions" focus on forming a pattern of land management rights transfer through the “three distinct rights”. Only through orderly land transfer can moderately scaled operations be formed; only through scaled operations, changing the past situation in which every household had “a little plot of land”, can the comparative returns from farming be significantly raised. Han Changfu stressed that institutional changes must be advanced steadily.

Han Changfu: We must both promote land transfer and guide it to proceed in an orderly manner; both develop scaled operations and guide them to be moderate in scale; both cultivate new types of operating entities and continue to support contracted farming households who work their own farmland; and both encourage industrial and commercial enterprises to invest in agriculture and prevent the crowding-out effect on farming households' employment and income growth, and prevent land from being diverted away from grain production, especially away from agriculture. In the final analysis, in promoting land transfer and developing scaled operations, we must solve both the agricultural problem and the farmer problem.

As for the “scale” of “scaled operations”, the "Opinions" set out a clear definition: land operating scale equivalent to 10-15 times the local average contracted land area per household, about 100 mu, will receive key support. In addition, as an important safeguard of land contract rights, the "Opinions" point out that work to confirm, register and certify contracted land rights must be carried out promptly and solidly, and problems such as inaccurate areas and unclear boundaries of farming households' contracted plots must be properly resolved; contract documents must be improved, registration books must be perfected, ownership certificates must be issued, and the protection of land contract management rights as real rights must be strengthened. Regarding the issue of industrial and commercial enterprises entering agriculture, which has attracted widespread social attention, the "Opinions" reiterate that, on the one hand, industrial and commercial capital is encouraged to develop modern agriculture suited to enterprise-based operations, and on the other hand, oversight and risk prevention must be strengthened for industrial and commercial enterprises leasing farming households' contracted land. Data show that as of the end of June 2014, the area of household contracted cultivated land transferred nationwide 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.