Breaking the Bottlenecks in the Rural Land System Is a Key Move to Strengthen Agriculture and Enrich Farmers
In 1978, 18 farmers in Xiaogang Village, Anhui, took a huge risk and pressed bright red fingerprints onto a contract implementing household contracting with output quotas fixed for each household. It can be said that this very act made Xiaogang Village the birthplace of the “all-round contract” and also made rural land system reform the starting point of China's reform, thereby driving forward a magnificent process of reform. More than 30 years later, in 2013, one of the highlights of the “Decision” of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee was a new breakthrough in deepening rural land system reform, which defined the direction, priorities and requirements of future rural land system reform. The launch of a new round of rural land system reform is not only directly related to the vital interests of hundreds of millions of farmers and to agricultural and rural development, but will also have a profound impact on China's entire economic and social development.
I. The Rural Land System Must Break Through Bottlenecks
“Land is the source of all things.” Land is the foundation of economic and social development. China's reform started with rural land system reform. The establishment and implementation of the household contract responsibility system greatly liberated and developed China's agricultural productivity, profoundly changed the face of rural development, and also injected strong momentum into reform and opening up as a whole.
Over the past 30-plus years, with the continuous development and improvement of the rural land system, China's comprehensive agricultural production capacity has steadily increased, and agricultural production has achieved a fundamental transformation from long-term shortage to overall balance with surpluses in good years. Since 2004, China's grain output has achieved “ten consecutive increases,” surpassing 600 million tons in 2013, and per capita availability has exceeded the world average for many consecutive years. At the same time, it must also be noted that with agricultural modernization and rural economic development, and with the rapid advance of urbanization and industrialization, the current rural land system still has many imperfections and has reached a point where it must be reformed.
◎ Land is the most important asset for farmers. No matter how the land system is changed, no one may play “tricks” on farmers, touch farmers' “cheese,” or turn it into a “Tang Monk's flesh” that everyone wants to take a bite of.
◎ As the saying goes, only a tightly clenched fist has power. The free transfer of rural land is meant to achieve large-scale operation, making it a “fist” rather than “fingers.”
◎ How the proceeds from “rural land entering the market” are distributed is key, and farmers must be ensured to be the biggest beneficiaries.
Affecting agricultural production. In recent years, the rural labor force has continuously shifted to non-agricultural industries and towns, but many people still retain rural contracted land. Under the current system, such land can neither be circulated on the market nor used for other purposes, which hinders large-scale land operation, leads to abandoned cultivated land, and creates the phenomenon of “land with no one to farm it,” which is not conducive to increasing grain output or to the development of agricultural modernization.
Causing land waste. In some places, an expansion model of “seeking development through land” has taken shape, with serious reliance on land revenue, illegal land occupation and blind enclosure and construction, resulting in the rapid reduction of cultivated land and serious land waste. During the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, in towns and industrial and mining areas, the population density carried by land fell by 10%, and the land utilization rate declined instead of rising; from 2001 to 2010, although farmers went to work in cities on a large scale, rural construction land instead increased by 2.03 million hectares. The extensive and wasteful land-use model has led many places to consume tomorrow's resources today, and some have even exceeded the 2020 land-use targets.
Harming farmers' rights and interests. In China, the problem of different prices for the same land between urban and rural areas is prominent. Rural collective land cannot be directly traded on the market; instead, it is expropriated by the state and compensated according to the income from the land's original use, so the compensation obtained by collective land owners is too low. According to surveys, the land expropriation compensation farmers receive accounts for only 5%-10% of land value-added proceeds. Social conflicts triggered by low land expropriation compensation standards, inadequate procedures, a single resettlement method and insufficient social security are acute, and a large number of disputes arise every year over land expropriation.
To solve these problems, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward a series of major measures to advance rural land system reform. But this reform is a major and special issue and must be advanced with extreme caution and in an orderly manner. What should be introduced as early as possible should not be delayed or left undone; what should be piloted should not be hastily rolled out; and what should be advanced only after in-depth study should not be rushed for quick success. The central authorities have already made arrangements to advance, within the authorized scope and in an orderly manner, pilot reforms of rural collective operational construction land, rural homesteads, the land expropriation system and so on.
II. What Thresholds Are There for “Rural Land Entering the Market”?
For more than half a year, the term “rural land entering the market” has frequently appeared in various media and on the internet. In fact, this term originated from some people's interpretation of the relevant spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. But this formulation is not accurate. The concept of rural land is very broad, and speaking generally of “rural land entering the market” easily creates misunderstandings, making people think that all rural land can enter the market.
In fact, the original text of the “Decision” of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee reads: “Under the premise of complying with planning and use control, allow rural collective operational construction land to be transferred, leased and used as shares, and implement equal market entry, equal rights and equal prices with state-owned land.” This means that “rural land entering the market” has defined requirements and “thresholds”; not just any rural land can enter the market.
First, it must be collective operational construction land. Rural land includes three types: collective agricultural land, construction land and unused land. Among these, collective construction land can be further divided into three categories: homestead land, land for public welfare facilities and operational land. Collective operational construction land, in plain terms, is land used for non-agricultural production and operation, that is, land used by collective economic organizations for secondary and tertiary industries, such as land for village-run and township-run enterprises. Among rural land, only this part of the land is eligible to enter the market; cultivated land, homestead land and so on are not.
Jiang Daming: Land reform must hold the bottom line
Jiang Daming, Minister of Land and Resources, believes that land reform must hold the bottom line. Holding the bottom line means that no matter how it is reformed, rural collective land ownership must not be undermined, cultivated land must not be reduced, grain output must not be lowered, and farmers' interests must not be harmed.
Second, it must comply with planning and use control. Construction land has relatively strong irreversibility; once damaged, it is very difficult to restore to its original state. For this reason, most countries in the world impose use control on land, and China does the same. Therefore, for operational construction land to enter the market, it must “buy a ticket before getting on the bus,” not “get on the bus first and buy a ticket later.” This ticket means complying with the overall land use plan and use control, and this is the precondition. In other words, among operational construction land, only the part that complies with planning and use control may be traded on the market.
Third, it must enjoy the same treatment as state-owned land. For qualifying operational construction land, it should enter the market with equal status and have equal rights and equal prices as state-owned land, rather than treating one favorably and the other unfavorably or “serving dishes according to the person.” Equal market entry means that both enter the market on an equal footing, which means operational construction land can be traded among more market participants, within a broader scope and for a wider range of uses; equal rights and equal prices mean that the rights and powers they have are the same, and both can be transferred, leased, used as shares, mortgaged and so on, and market prices should not differ because of differences in the nature of the land.
Guide and regulate rural collective operational construction land entering the market
Under the premise of complying with planning and use control, allow rural collective operational construction land to be transferred, leased and used as shares, implement equal market entry, equal rights and equal prices with state-owned land, and accelerate the establishment of a system for property rights transfer and value-added proceeds distribution for rural collective operational construction land. Relevant departments should promptly put forward specific guiding opinions and promote the revision of relevant laws and regulations. All localities should, in accordance with the unified arrangements of the central authorities, advance this work in a standardized and orderly manner.
——Excerpted from “Several Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening Rural Reform and Accelerating Agricultural Modernization”
It can thus be seen that rural collective operational construction land entering the market not only has strict hard requirements but also grants it new rights and powers, which is good news for the vast number of farmers. In recent years, Guangdong, Anhui, Hubei and other provinces have issued regulations standardizing the transfer of collective construction land and have actively carried out exploratory reform of collective construction land. Of course, to do this good deed well and truly benefit the vast number of farmers, some basic work must also be done well. First, implement the 2014 Central Document No. 1, accelerate the revision of relevant laws and regulations and institutional development, promptly revise the Property Law, the Land Administration Law and so on, and issue specific guiding opinions as soon as possible so that the reform has a legal basis. Second, improve the public trading market, incorporate transactions of rural collective operational construction land into existing trading platforms such as the state-owned construction land market, so that prices are “decided by the market” and fully reflect their due value. Third, establish a mechanism for distributing land value-added proceeds, balance the interests of the state, the collective and individuals, reasonably increase individual income, and let farmers benefit in this reform.