How can rural dead resources be turned into living capital?

Wu Changcai, a villager from Huping Village, Liuhou Town, Yicheng City, Hubei Province, has lived in a two-story house for nearly 30 years. At the end of last year, he received an "Real Estate Ownership Certificate" indicating the area of the farmhouse and the homestead. Wu Changcai said, "With the property certificate for the farmhouse, I feel more secure."

The reform of the homestead system involves the vital interests of the vast number of farmers and is also an important supporting measure for promoting the transfer of agricultural population to cities and towns. In piloting the homestead system reform, Yicheng City has explored unified confirmation and certification, paid use of excess areas, and voluntary paid withdrawal, forming a "win-win" situation in which farmers' property income increases and rural cultivated land area increases.

Confirmation and certification of homesteads turns "dead assets" into "living capital"

Located in the middle reaches of the Han River, Yicheng City, Hubei Province, is one of the 33 national pilot areas for rural land system reform and undertakes the pilot task of homestead system reform. Since March last year, after successfully launching pilots in 8 villages in the early stage, Yicheng City has now rolled it out across the entire city.

The first step in "breaking the ice" for rural homestead reform is confirmation of rights. Yicheng City organized more than 500 cadres to go into villages and households, finding out the basic situation of homesteads of more than 100,000 farming households across the city. At the same time, it established a real estate registration bureau to carry out measurement of farmers' housing and ownership investigation.

On the basis of properly resolving problems left over from history, Yicheng City has issued real estate ownership certificates to farmers in batches. A reporter saw in Group 4 of Huping Village, Liuhou Town, that the homestead area, rights holders, construction time and other property rights information of 47 households including Wu Changcai were posted on the public notice board to facilitate supervision by villagers.

The confirmation and certification of homesteads and farmhouses removed the last "stumbling block" for farmers applying for mortgage loans. Zhao Baochuan, a villager from Huangchong Village, Liushui Town, Yicheng City, recently mortgaged his farmhouse and homestead and borrowed 100,000 yuan from a bank to develop ecological lotus root cultivation.

Zhao Baochuan said that in the past, when farmers applied for loans, farmhouses could not be mortgaged without property certificates, so they could only use the method of three-household joint guarantee, and the loan amount was only 30,000 to 50,000 yuan. "Now after confirmation and certification, the value of farmhouses can circulate."

Wang Dazhao, president of the Yicheng City Sub-branch of the People's Bank of China, said that the first batch of farmhouse mortgage loans for 5 households totaling 460,000 yuan has now all been credited, mainly used by farmers to transfer land, dig ponds and raise fish, and so on. "The total value of farmhouses in the city exceeds 20 billion yuan. After confirmation and certification, the former 'dead assets' can be turned into farmers' 'living capital.'"

Setting baseline ranges and charging fees: paid use of excess homestead areas "breaks the ice"

For a long time, phenomena such as excessively large homestead areas, unauthorized construction, and multiple homesteads for one household have been common. Coupled with poor exit mechanisms, this has become a bottleneck restricting the intensive use of rural land and the transfer of agricultural population to cities. Exploring paid use and paid withdrawal of homesteads is an important task of the Yicheng reform pilot.

According to Hubei Province land management regulations, the homestead area of farmers using construction land cannot exceed 200 square meters. According to statistics, among the 106,600 farming households in Yicheng City, a total of 86,300 households had homestead areas exceeding the standard, accounting for more than 80%.

How should paid use of homesteads be implemented? Villagers said that paid use must take objective conditions and historical factors into consideration. For example, in villages with more cultivated land, grain cultivation uses more agricultural machinery, so the demand for machinery housing on homesteads must be considered. "If the fee standard for excess homestead area is one-size-fits-all, it will be hard to win people over."

After soliciting opinions from multiple parties, Yicheng City decided to adopt the method of "clarifying baselines, delimiting ranges, and villager self-governance," and establish a paid use mechanism in light of each village's actual conditions: formulate differentiated rural baseline land prices according to market towns, central villages, and ordinary villages; delimit three fee ranges, with homesteads of 200 square meters or less used free of charge; and areas exceeding that are charged according to the baseline land price multiplied by different coefficients.

"Villager self-governance is the foundation for the smooth implementation of paid use of homesteads." Ding Guofeng, deputy head of the Yicheng City Homestead Reform Leading Group, said that the fee coefficients for homestead ranges are determined through villager self-governance, and special groups such as households in difficulty and people with disabilities are given care and reductions or exemptions. All revenue from paid use of homesteads belongs to village collective organizations for open use and accepts villager supervision.

Wu Changcai calculated an account for the reporter: his household's homestead area exceeds the standard by 29 square meters, the average homestead area per household in the whole village is 243 square meters, the baseline land price in Huping Village is 1 yuan per square meter, and the village determined the fee coefficient for areas exceeding 200 square meters as 0.5; the fee coefficient for the part exceeding the village's average household area is 1, so he needs to pay 14.5 yuan per year.

Wang Chaofu, Party secretary of Huangchong Village, Liushui Town, Yicheng City, said that more than 600 households in Huangchong Village had homesteads exceeding the standard, and 195,000 yuan in paid use fees was collected from villagers, accounting for more than 98% of the households that should pay. "After discussion by the village representative assembly, 70,000 yuan of the revenue has been used for village streetlight construction."

Unblocking paid withdrawal channels: farming households voluntarily withdraw from homesteads one after another

Some grassroots cadres and villagers interviewed said that when homesteads were used without compensation, villagers all sought large areas, and disputes over homestead boundaries between neighbors continued. Now those who occupy more homestead land must pay more fees, making fairness more prominent while ensuring farmers "have a place to live."

Yicheng City has made it clear that villagers may voluntarily choose to withdraw from rural homestead use rights, with the village committee repurchasing them, and funds coming from paid use revenue from homesteads and rewards and subsidies from land increase-decrease linkage projects. After villagers withdraw from homesteads, the land will be reclaimed as cultivated land.

At present, a total of 68 farmers in 8 pilot villages across the city have chosen paid withdrawal from homesteads, with a total area of 61.7 mu. Li Chenglin, a villager from Group 2 of Liutai Village, Liushui Town, had once formed "one household, two homesteads" because he built a house at a new site. After paid use of homesteads was implemented last year, Li Chenglin chose to withdraw from the old housing homestead of more than 300 square meters and received 7,700 yuan in compensation.

Standing on the old homestead that has been reclaimed and planted with crops, Li Chenglin said with emotion, "Now excess homestead area requires payment, and withdrawing from homesteads also comes with compensation. Everyone is highly motivated to withdraw voluntarily."

Li Shi, Party secretary of the Yicheng City Party Committee, said that after strengthening standardized management of homestead approval and withdrawal, if all farmers in Yicheng City who occupy excess homesteads voluntarily withdraw, plus front courtyards, back courtyards, and household access roads being comprehensively consolidated through land arrangement, it is estimated that more than 50,000 mu of cultivated land can be added while ensuring the village collective's own development and construction.