Cultivated land is fundamental to safeguarding national food security.
Who decides on land transfer, what scale of land operation is appropriate, how to guide the “non-grain” use of cultivated land, and how to view the boom of industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside
How to make land “circulate”
At present, land transfer is showing a trend of accelerated development across the country. As of the end of 2013, the national contracted cultivated land transfer area was 340 million mu, 3.1 times that at the end of 2008, and the transfer ratio reached 26%, 17.1 percentage points higher than at the end of 2008. There were more than 2.87 million specialized large households with an operating area of more than 50 mu, and more than 870,000 family farms.
However, recently some places have shown a tendency to rush for quick results in the process of rural land transfer, and there are misunderstandings and misreadings of the central policies. How should we view phenomena such as the “non-grain” use of land and the boom of industrial and commercial capital going to the countryside? What scale of rural land transfer is appropriate? How can land transfer be promoted in an orderly manner? The reporter interviewed Zhang Hongyu, director of the Department of Rural Economic System and Operation Management of the Ministry of Agriculture, on this matter.
Who actually decides on land transfer?
Rural land transfer involves the interests of multiple parties, including contracted farmers, large-scale operating entities, and village collective economic organizations. Local governments also pay close attention. Who actually decides on this issue?
In this regard, Zhang Hongyu pointed out that land transfer is a process of resource allocation and should be decided by the market. But land is also the lifeblood of farmers, so the government must protect farmers' interests well, do a good job in management and services, and play a role in regulation and guidance.
“The law stipulates that rural collective land in China is operated under a household contract system. Whether land is transferred, how prices are determined, and how forms are chosen should all be decided independently by the contracted farmers. No organization or individual may compel or restrict them.” Zhang Hongyu said that now some places one-sidedly pursue transfer scale and transfer ratio, relying on administrative orders to assign targets, set tasks, and rush for speed, harming farmers' interests. The problem lies in rushing for quick results, overstepping, excessive intervention, replacing the role of the market, and making decisions on behalf of farmers.
It is understood that at present, two-thirds of China's counties and townships have not established land transfer service platforms, nearly 40% of land transfers have not signed contracts, and 188,000 land transfer disputes were accepted last year.
Experts say that in the future the government should continuously standardize land transfer behavior and improve land transfer services by establishing and improving open land transfer markets, strengthening land transfer contract management, and improving dispute mediation mechanisms, so as to create a favorable environmental condition for the transfer of farmers' contracted management rights.
What scale of land operation is appropriate?
Many people believe that the main problem restricting the development of modern agriculture in China is the small scale of operation, and that the current focus is to expand the scale of land operation. So, what scale of land operation is appropriate in China at present?
“The scale of land operation is not the bigger the better.” Zhang Hongyu emphasized that having more people and less land is China's basic national condition. Under existing production conditions and with the rural population still very large, an excessively large scale of land operation will affect land output rate and farmers' employment, and is not conducive to increasing agricultural production and farmers' income. Therefore, factors such as regional differences, natural and economic conditions, the transfer of rural labor, production costs, and the level of agricultural mechanization must be fully considered, and the appropriate scale of land operation in each region should be determined according to local conditions.