What are the new rural land reform policies? The latest interpretation is here
Farmers' land use rights and rural construction land use rights should be an entry point for China's economic strategic transformation. Only when farmers obtain assets and property that they can control and dispose of themselves can they have the capital and footing to participate in market economy competition, and can surplus labor be liberated from the land. Now let us take a look at the interpretation of the new rural land reform policies!
[Land reform policies]Improve the land expropriation system, narrow the scope of land expropriation, explore the formulation of an expropriation catalog, strictly define the scope of land used for public interests, and improve a reasonable, standardized and diversified safeguard mechanism for farmers whose land is expropriated.
[Policy interpretation] The state may, for the needs of public interests, expropriate or requisition land and give compensation. However, in reality some local governments expropriate farmers' collective land in the name of public interests, yet use the land for real estate development, enterprise project construction and so on. In terms of compensation to farmers, the state stipulates that land compensation fees and land resettlement subsidies combined shall not exceed 30 times the average output value of the land in the previous three years. If compensation is based on the use of agricultural grain cultivation, calculating at an average gross income of 1000 yuan per mu, 30 times per mu is only 30,000 yuan, but after expropriation and construction of buildings, one sq m sells for 5000 yuan!
[Land reform policies]Establish a market entry system for rural collective operating construction land, grant rural collective operating construction land the functions of transfer, lease and equity participation, and clarify the scope and channels for market entry.
[Policy interpretation] In recent years, a large part of the fiscal revenue of some local governments has relied on “selling land”, but land resources are ultimately limited. Some cities need to incorporate some surrounding rural areas during expansion, and this is one of the demands for rural collective operating construction land to enter the market. Establishing a market entry system for rural collective operating construction land such as village-run enterprises and factories, and giving it “equal rights and equal prices” with state-owned land, allows farmers to use transfer, lease, equity participation and other methods to realize the preservation and appreciation of collective operating construction land!
[Land reform policies]Reform and improve the rural homestead system, explore voluntary paid withdrawal or transfer of homesteads by farmers who have settled in cities, and reform the homestead approval system.
[Policy interpretation] In pilot homestead reform, the basic principle is one household, one homestead. In the future, for multiple homesteads per household or idle homesteads formed for historical reasons, the measures the state may adopt will be “very simple and very forceful”——taxation. Homesteads exceeding the standard or with excessively large areas will also be taxed! For areas with little per capita cultivated land and relatively developed secondary and tertiary industries, in principle single dispersed homestead allocation may no longer be carried out, and instead one household, one homestead will be implemented through concentrated construction of rural apartments and farmers' residential communities. As for farmers who have settled in towns and cities, their homesteads in the village can, on the premise of “voluntariness”, be withdrawn with compensation and purchased with funds from the village collective. Henan Province has already issued a policy requiring all cities to establish rural homestead withdrawal fund pools, giving one-time economic subsidies to farmers who voluntarily withdraw from their homesteads and no longer apply for new homesteads.