How can land transfer risks be resolved? Adapting to each situation is key

Farmers fear that investors will "run away", and investors fear that farmers will be "difficult"... In recent years, with the advancement of moderate-scale agricultural operations, rural land transfer has entered an active period, and problems have followed.

In response to these problems, Pengshan District of Meishan City, Sichuan Province, as a pilot area for the second round of rural reform, has used problems to drive change and adapted to each situation, exploring and innovating since 2015 a four-step land transfer mechanism: "three-level land pre-recommendation - public platform trading - pre-qualification review - risk emergency handling". Guo Hong, deputy secretary of the Pengshan District Party Committee, said that the "four-step mechanism" has made rural land transfer more smooth and standardized, attracted production factors to "flow back" to agriculture and rural areas, and promoted the vigorous development of modern agriculture.

Thanks to the implementation of the "four-step mechanism", in 2015, Pengshan District centrally transferred 12 mu of land, newly cultivated 398 new agricultural business entities, and the investment growth rate in the primary industry reached 118.4%, far higher than 11.9% in the secondary industry and 13.6% in the tertiary industry.

　　1

Problem: How to resolve the contradiction between fragmented and scattered land and large-scale investor investment?

Move: Three-level pre-recommendation gathers scattered land into whole parcels for pre-transfer

Keyword: Integration

87 mu of red-fleshed honey pomelo had been planted for almost a year, and Zhang Wei, a villager from Group 2 of Lingjiao Village, Fengming Town, Pengshan District, still exclaimed: "I never expected that through the land transfer company, I could get the land without any trouble at all."

Previously, if Zhang Wei wanted to transfer this land, he first had to negotiate with the village committee and villagers' group involved with the land. If individual farmers among those involved had objections, he also had to negotiate with the farmers separately. The process was not only cumbersome, but also did not necessarily achieve the goal, and it affected the relationship between the investor and the farmers.

The change originated from the establishment of the Pengshan District-township-village three-level land pre-recommendation mechanism. In 2015, in order to solve the contradiction between fragmented transferred land and large-scale investor investment and reduce the cumbersome process of investors meeting farmers household by household, the state-owned platform company of Pengshan District - Zhengxing Agricultural Development Investment Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Zhengxing Company) formally assumed the function of land transfer intermediary services, exploring the use of market-based methods to carry out information collection, land parcel integration, packaging and promotion, and other business for rural land transfer throughout the district. At present, the company has established 12 township subsidiaries and 80 village-community service stations covering the entire district.

The "three-level land pre-recommendation" cannot be separated from "screws" like Zheng Liping from the village-community service station. She is not only responsible for collecting villagers' willingness to transfer land in her village, but also for exchanging scattered plots within the area whose owners are unwilling to transfer, so that the transferred land forms contiguous parcels.

"In the past, farmers sat waiting for investors to come to their doors; now we take the initiative to attract investment." Guo Hong told reporters that the three-level pre-recommendation mechanism has reversed the transfer model previously dominated by investors. On the basis of ensuring the minimum income (800 jin of yellow rice per mu for paddy fields, 400 jin of yellow rice per mu for mountain land), farmers willing to transfer only need to sign a "Voluntary Letter of Entrustment for Land Transfer" with the township subsidiary through the village-community service station, and the company then integrates and packages the land entrusted by farmers for transfer and seeks investors.

Deng Bin, chairman of Zhengxing Company, said that the company is not only responsible for collecting and storing land, but also, in combination with local industrial development and investor needs, integrates and reasonably divides the collected and stored land to ensure moderate scale and quality optimization of the land.

　　2

Problem: How to break opaque operations, non-transparent transfers, and damage to farmers' interests?

Move: Platform trading for land transfers of more than 10 mu

Keyword: Openness

Once the land was integrated, where could investors be found? On September 16 last year, the Pengshan District Rural Property Rights Transfer Trading Center was officially inaugurated and opened. On that day, through service windows such as the district land transfer service company and banks, the trading center facilitated 8 transactions including transferred land and mortgage loans, transferred 2 parcels of land totaling 156 mu, and handled 6 loan procedures for investors worth 1.95 million yuan.

Zhang Hongtao, director of the Pengshan District Rural Office, told reporters that in order to prevent opaque operations in rural land transfer, non-transparent transfers, and harm to farmers' interests, Pengshan District requires that land transfer projects of more than 10 mu must be uniformly submitted to the district rural property rights trading center for listed transfer.

Yang Zhiming, general manager of Sichuan Guoyi Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd., is a locally well-known large grape grower. Through the property rights trading center, he smoothly transferred 260 mu of land in Malin Village. "I have grown grapes for 20 years. In the past, renting land required negotiating with villagers door to door, which was laborious and mentally exhausting." Yang Zhiming told reporters that in September last year, after learning about the transfer of land management rights in Malin Village, he signed a land transfer agreement with the Gongyi Town Land Transfer Service Company after a public bidding.

Liu Bibo, director of the Pengshan District Rural Property Rights Trading Center, told reporters that the platform has now achieved interconnection with the provincial-level platform - the Chengdu Rural Property Rights Exchange - and provides free services such as information release and transaction certification for farmers transferring land and the entrusted Zhengxing Agricultural Company.

According to statistics, since the center was put into operation, it has publicly released 147 items of rural property rights transfer result information, involving a transfer area of about 21,000 mu and an amount of about 240 million yuan. The transaction area of rural land contractual management rights transfers reached 4751.683 mu, with a transaction amount of about 35.94 million yuan. Among them, the largest single parcel was 1324.99 mu, and the average transfer price per mu reached 1083 yuan, 83 yuan higher per mu than farmers' self-transfers.

　　3

Problem: How to prevent unfinished projects and lost rent?

Move: Prior review + ex post fallback guarantee to give farmers zero risk

Keyword: Guardianship

In March last year, Qin Dan, who had been away from home for many years, returned to start a business with his savings, wanting to transfer 1400 mu of land to grow purple yam. Unexpectedly, Zhengxing Company rejected it. Why? "First, you have no orders; second, you have no processing workshop. With such a large area, the risk is too great." Zhengxing Company's investigation report stated clearly.

Deng Bin told reporters that in order to protect the rights and interests of both parties to the transfer, Zhengxing Company conducts qualification reviews of investing entities, focusing on comprehensive assessment from three aspects: financial strength, agricultural operation capability, and project prospects. For areas under 300 mu, it focuses on agricultural investment risk warnings; for areas above 300 mu, it is more detailed and thorough.

According to the risk rating, Zhengxing Company collects a risk guarantee deposit of 200 to 300 yuan per mu of land from investors by category, used to establish a special fund for district land transfer risk handling.

But how can the rationality and authority of the qualification assessment be ensured? Faced with the reporter's question, Deng Bin's answer was that "Zhengxing Company is the least willing to see projects left unfinished, so it is the most prudent assessor." According to the system design, once a transfer "accident" occurs - the investor withdraws from the lease because he is "unable to farm", but the farmers are unwilling to take over the farming - Zhengxing Company must "take over", using the model of "advancing rent - trusteeship and self-operation - re-recruitment of investors" to provide a risk fallback guarantee.

"In less than two years, Zhengxing Company has planted green vegetables and rice." Deng Bin told reporters that the company has handled 4 defaulted projects, the largest involving a land area of 4000 mu, land rent of more than 4 million yuan, and 843 villager households. In order to prevent mass incidents, Zhengxing Company advanced the land rent. "At that time, it was the major spring farming period, and it was impossible for the time being to re-transfer all 4000 mu of land. In order to minimize losses, the company could only immediately organize personnel to sow." Deng Bin said. Now, this 4000 mu of land has been re-divided and transferred to a total of 18 investors from Beijing, Yunnan, Leshan, and other places.

In order to help investors develop, Zhengxing Company has set up a difficult-problem mediation team to provide assistance to investors in civil disputes, social conflicts, and life difficulties encountered during the investment process; and to release auxiliary information such as weather information, market conditions, marketing strategies, and policies and regulations in a timely manner... In this way, the transfer service agency has not only become the "guardian" of farmers' interests, but also the "support team" of investing entities.