The first step in the new round of rural reform is the reform of collective property rights and the slow entry of farmland into the market.

The Comprehensive implementation Plan for deepening Rural Reform (hereinafter referred to as the "Program") issued at the end of last month once again pushed a series of contradictions and problems in relevant rural areas to the foreground of reform and development.

In recent years, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Land and other departments have successively launched a series of rural reforms, such as the transfer of agricultural land, the reform of shares of collective assets and the entry of collective land into the market. In fact, the above "plan" plays a comprehensive guiding role in these rural reforms. In the words of Chen Xiwen, deputy head of the Central Rural work leading Group and director of the office, "it is mainly to clarify the major principles and basic direction of rural reform. Draw a clear bottom line and solve the coordination between various reforms in all aspects of rural areas. "

Experts close to the Ministry of Land told the Economic Observer that the most concentrated and complex contradictions in the current rural reform and even the whole "three rural" reform are mainly the problems of land reform. such as the entry of collective construction land into the market, the ownership of farmers' homestead, the disposal of houses with small property rights, the ownership of cultivated land, the right to contract, the right of management, etc., between the central and local governments, as well as among some experts There are still big differences.

Domestic economists Wu Jinglian, Li Yining and Zhou Qiren all pay close attention to the issue of land reform. Wu Jinglian said publicly in May this year that at present, the explanation of the "separation of powers" of agricultural land is not clear enough, resulting in differences in the understanding of many people. Li Yining has also said many times that real estate certificates should be issued to farmers as soon as possible. only after the farmers have the property certificate can the real estate be sold and mortgaged, and the farmers' houses will increase in value, which is also conducive to solving the vacant homestead in many farmers' homes. Zhou Qiren believes that the current "half-pull" project of land reform has caused many problems, social management has posed great challenges, and more in-depth reforms must be carried out.

It is worth noting that the opinions on Rural Land expropriation, the entry of Collective Construction Land into the Market and the pilot work of Homestead system Reform issued by relevant parties at the end of last year is a policy land reform document of great concern to the industry. The Ministry of Land and other aspects have carried out pilot reform in 33 county-level units across the country for more than 10 months, but so far, the document has not been made public, and it is in the "Plan". The main contents of the document and the progress of the 33 pilot reforms are all in the form of "ellipsis".

The first is collective property right.

The above-mentioned "plan" is clear that at present and for a period of time in the future, deepening rural reform mainly focuses on five major areas: rural collective property rights system, agricultural management system, agricultural support and protection system, integrated system mechanism for urban and rural development, and rural social governance system.

Why put the reform of rural collective property right system in the first place? Chen Xiwen explained that the main body of China's rural areas is the rural collective economy, and the reform of the rural collective property rights system is closely related to the vital interests of more than 900 million farmers.

In China, about 46% of the total land area is owned by rural collectives, including more than 2 billion mu of arable land, as well as rural collective construction land, such as township enterprise land and farmers' residential land, which belong to collective construction land.

According to the aforementioned experts close to the Ministry of Land, the current problem in cultivated land is mainly the dispute over the "separation of rights" of farmers' contracted land. The so-called "three rights" refers to the ownership, contracting right and management right of agricultural land. This formulation appeared in the "opinions on guiding the orderly transfer of Rural Land Management Rights to develop appropriate scale Management of Agriculture" (hereinafter referred to as "opinions") issued by the Central Office and the State Council Office on November 20 last year.

However, before the introduction of the policy of "separation of rights", Chinese farmers' contracted land implemented the policy of "separation of two rights", that is, the policy of "separation of collective ownership of land and farmers' contractual management rights". According to the above-mentioned "opinions", the transition from the "separation of two rights" of farmers' contracted land to the "separation of three powers" is for the registration and orderly circulation of farmers' contracted land, and finally to realize the appropriate scale operation of agricultural production, and to cultivate new agricultural management subjects such as large grain growers and family farms, that is, to ensure the food security of the country.

The disputes of some experts on the "separation of powers" are mainly focused on the ownership of farmers' contracted land. There is a view that the ownership of agricultural land should be returned to farmers; another view is that we should continue to adhere to rural collective ownership, and the ownership of farmers' contracted land should belong to the collective.

Wu Jinglian's views are consistent with the latter. He believes that according to the current land reform policy, the transfer of agricultural land is the right of management, but some interpreters of the "separation of powers" policy are not clear enough and inconsistent on how to separate the "three powers." this has led to differences in the understanding of many people.

Slow the entry of agricultural land into the market

The aforementioned experts close to the Ministry of Land told the Economic Observer that at present, what the industry is most concerned about is not the transfer of farmers' contracted land, but collective construction land. Some economists believe that the pace of rural collective construction land entering the market is too slow and the reform is too small, which will cause a lot of problems.

Rural collective construction land is divided into two parts: operational and non-operational. Peasant household homestead is a kind of non-operating collective construction land, while township enterprise land is commercial collective construction land. at present, according to the data held by the Ministry of Land, the total area of peasant household homestead is about 170 million mu. National township enterprises cover an area of more than 40 million mu. The pilot land reform of 33 county-level units that began this year is mainly aimed at the occupation of township enterprises across the country, allowing only this part of agricultural land to enter the auction market, and has also set a premise that it must comply with the land planning and use control of the Ministry of Land.

For farmers' homestead, the requirement for 33 land reform pilot projects is that each farmer can only have one homestead, and the transfer of the right to use the homestead must be limited to villagers in their own village, and urbanites are strictly forbidden to buy land and build houses in rural areas.

According to the aforementioned experts close to the Ministry of Land, in fact, since 1999, many breakthrough reforms in the circulation of rural land have been carried out in more than 20 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities), including farmers' homestead, including Wuhu in Anhui and Suzhou in Jiangsu Province. and some places have also issued policies and regulations on the transfer of collective construction land, but these are basically difficult to be recognized by the national land authorities.

Zheng Zhenyuan, former deputy director of the Planning Department of the State Land Administration, told the Economic Observer that judging from the progress of the 33 land reform pilot projects, the pace of reform is not fast, and the results and experience achieved are also very limited. This time, the relevant land reform policies in the "plan" have been "omitted", and the progress of 33 land reform pilot projects has not been mentioned. it can be seen that the Central Agricultural Office, the Ministry of Land and other aspects of collective land into the market is still in a state of strict risk control and closed management.

The expert analysis close to the Ministry of Land said that in addition to rural arable land and collective construction land, there are also village-run enterprises, village-run primary schools and village-run health centers that belong to rural collective assets. the total book value of these assets in rural areas is about 3 trillion yuan. in the next step in the reform of the rural collective property right system, these assets will be "converted into shares" and clearly belong to the village collective. And let the farmers really become the "shareholders" of the village collective.

In the joint-stock reform of collective construction land and rural collective assets, the problem of how to dispose of the houses with small property rights will be involved. therefore, the reform of rural collective property rights shares is also a strategy of pilot first and strict risk control. as early as May this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and other parties issued the relevant stock reform plan to 29 cities (counties and districts), but up to now The list of the programme and pilot cities (counties and districts) has not been made public.

The experts close to the Ministry of Land added that the deadlines for the relevant pilot projects of rural collective land, homestead reform and rural collective asset property rights reform are all by the end of 2017, which means that the revision of the Land Management Law will also be postponed to two or three years later.

The real goal of reform

Chen Xiwen interpreted the "plan" at a news conference held by the State Council on November 4.

In addition to focusing on the reform of the rural collective property rights system, he also made an in-depth interpretation of the current grain regulation and control, agricultural subsidies, and other issues, all of which are closely related to the reform of the agricultural management system, the agricultural support and protection system, and the institutional mechanism for the integration of urban and rural development put forward in the "plan."

With regard to the sharp decline in grain prices such as corn and wheat since the second half of this year, Chen Xiwen analyzed that domestic grain production, import, and inventory have "all increased", and domestic and international grain prices have been seriously upside down. this makes the situation of the domestic grain market seem unusually complicated, and one of the main reasons behind this is that the reform of the price policy of supporting the grain market lags behind. The current purchase of grain at the lowest price and temporary storage price are all a combination of price and subsidy, and the next step will be to improve the grain collection and storage policy and improve the subsidy method in accordance with the idea of "separation of price and compensation," so as to avoid excessive government intervention as far as possible.

Jiao Shanwei, director of the Yida Research Institute of the China Grain Network, said in an analysis to the Economic Observer that after the implementation of the policy of "separation of price and compensation," farmers will sell grain at market prices. If market grain prices are on the low side, the government will directly subsidize farmers. This is the grain "target price" reform currently under way. The advantage of the "target price" policy is that the formation mechanism of grain price is close to the market and protects the reasonable interests of farmers.

With regard to the question of "who will farm the land" that many people are worried about at present, Chen Xiwen said that at present, the average age of Japanese farmers is 67, and there are still more than 600 million people living in rural areas in China. Relying on this group of people to cultivate land, "age and gender are not the main obstacles." the key is to gradually train professional farmers, as well as the appropriate scale operation of agriculture, agricultural social services, and so on.

Han Jun, deputy director of the China Agricultural Office, did not worry too much about "who will farm the land." This year, the Central Agricultural Office conducted a national survey in Jiangsu Province, and those who were willing to return to rural areas in universities accounted for 5% and 6%. "it was a pleasant surprise to see this data," he said.

Jiao Shanwei also said: at present, there are more than 70 agricultural colleges and universities across the country, which train a large number of agricultural college students every year. In the future, these highly educated talents can become professional and professional farmers. In full accordance with mechanized, scientific, and factory management technology, we can gradually develop new agricultural management organizations such as large grain growers and family farms.

With regard to the reform of the agricultural management protection system, the Economic Observer has learned that at present, the central government spends about 1.5 trillion yuan on agriculture, rural areas and farmers every year, and in the next step, one of the main lines of the policy of "agriculture, rural areas and farmers" is to "give more, take less, and release life." the intensity of "giving more" to farmers and farmers will become greater and greater. The proposal of the 13th five-year Plan released recently also clearly points out that it is necessary to continuously increase investment in agriculture and improve the subsidy system for agriculture, which are all new policy signals of the central government's support for "agriculture, rural areas and farmers."

In terms of the reform of the urban integration system, Han Jun's interpretation is that one of the most arduous tasks put forward in the "plan" is to promote the process of citizenization of migrant workers and promote people-centered urbanization in the future. The further analysis of the aforementioned experts close to the Ministry of Land is that there has been a new and specific exposition in the 13th five-year Plan proposal, which roughly means that migrant workers who meet the basic conditions, agricultural migrant population and their families should be allowed to settle down in cities, so that these migrant workers can lead the same decent life as urban people.