Top-level Design of Agricultural Reform in the 13th five-year Plan: exploring paid use of Homestead

On November 3, the proposal of the CPC Central Committee on the formulation of the Thirteenth five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development (hereinafter referred to as the proposal) was officially announced.

It is suggested that we should stabilize the rural land contract relationship, improve the separation of land ownership, contracting rights and management rights, and promote the orderly circulation of land management rights in accordance with the law. Deepen the reform of the rural land system.

The day before the announcement of the proposal, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Comprehensive implementation Plan for deepening Rural Reform (hereinafter referred to as the plan). As the top-level design of China's rural reform, the plan defines the pilot ideas of rural land expropriation, collective construction land entering the market, and homestead system reform.

Among them, it is mentioned to explore the system of paid use of homestead and the mechanism of voluntary paid withdrawal, and to explore the effective ways of mortgage, guarantee and transfer of farmers' housing property rights. timely put forward specific plans for the extension of cultivated land after the expiration of the second round of contract, the new contract period and so on.

The 21st century economic reporter combed and found that the plan combines the attempts in land reform and other fields in recent years, as well as local pilot experience, and sorts out the five core areas of rural reform at present and in the future. including rural collective property rights system, agricultural management system, agricultural support and protection system, urban-rural development integration system mechanism and rural social governance system.

According to the evaluation of the academic and local agricultural system, the reform plan as a whole is relatively sound, emphasizing "prudence and safety."

The biggest breakthrough in homestead reform

Since the third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, a new round of land reform has been the focus of attention.

The above plan emphasizes that the implementation of collective ownership, the stabilization of farmers' right to contract and the activation of land management rights are the basic principles.

In the "three plots of land" that have attracted the most attention from the market, the plan proposes to "carry out the expropriation of rural land, the entry of collective construction land into the market, and the pilot reform of homestead system".

The basic idea of the reform of rural land expropriation system is to narrow the scope of land expropriation and standardize the procedure of land expropriation.

The basic idea of the reform of collective construction land system mentions that the stock of rural collective construction land that is allowed to be identified by overall land use planning and urban and rural planning for industrial and mining warehousing, commercial services and other commercial purposes shall enjoy the same rights as state-owned construction land. under the premise of being in line with planning, use control and acquisition in accordance with the law, it can be sold, leased and bought into shares. We will improve the trading rules for entering the market, the service supervision system and the rational distribution mechanism of land value-added income.

Among them, the biggest breakthrough is the homestead reform. The basic idea of the reform is: on the basis of ensuring the usufruct of homestead obtained by farmers in accordance with the law, reform and improve the rural homestead system, explore the new mechanism of farmers' housing security, and clearly define farmers' housing property rights. explore the system of paid use of homestead and voluntary paid exit mechanism, and explore effective ways to mortgage, guarantee and transfer farmers' housing property rights.

An agricultural official in Hubei Province told the 21st Century Economic report that some areas in Jiangxi and Hunan are already experimenting with the reform of homestead; in areas where there are no pilot projects, there are also a small number of non-standard "transactions" among the people.

In January 2015, the Central Committee issued the opinions on Rural Land expropriation, the entry of Collective Construction Land into the Market, and the pilot work of Homestead system Reform, in which it was decided to select about 30 counties (cities and districts) across the country to carry out pilot projects, including 15 pilot projects for rural Homestead system reform.

It is also mentioned in the proposal of the 13th five-year Plan: to safeguard the land contract rights, homestead use rights and collective income distribution rights of farmers settled in cities, and to support and guide them to voluntarily transfer the above rights and interests with compensation in accordance with the law.

Take the pilot city of Yicheng in Hubei as an example, at present, the city has issued a draft of relevant management measures, such as paid use of rural homestead, voluntary withdrawal, income fund management, villagers' autonomy, handling problems left over by history, and so on.

The new term of the second round of contracting will be launched in due course.

It is worth noting that in deepening the reform of the rural land contract management system, the plan mentions that we should step up efforts to amend relevant laws and implement the central government's major policy decision on stabilizing rural land contracting relations and keeping them unchanged for a long time. Timely put forward specific plans for the extension of cultivated land after the expiration of the second round of contracts, the new contract period and other contents.

This policy will be related to the industrial and commercial capital of a large number of farmers who lease contracted land. According to the opinions on strengthening the Supervision and risk Prevention of Industrial and Commercial Capital Lease of Agricultural Land issued in 2015, for the first time, clear upper limit control and supervision measures have been set for the lease time and land area of the contracted land of industrial and commercial capital leased farmers. Among them, the lease period shall be reasonably determined according to the implementation of the project, and the method of phased lease may be adopted, but all shall not exceed the remaining time of the second round of the contract.

According to the current 30-year contract period, the second round of contract will expire in 2028 at the latest. When the 21st Century Economic report reporter interviewed the transfer of land contractual management rights at the grass-roots level, many grass-roots agricultural management departments and industrial and commercial enterprises paid great attention to the new contract term plan.

Emphasize the need for authorization for local pilot projects

When encouraging local reform pilot projects, the program especially emphasizes that "major reforms that break through existing laws and regulations should be submitted for approval in accordance with procedures, authorized, and pilot projects should be carried out within a certain scope."

An official of the Hubei agricultural system told the 21st century economic reporter that the plan emphasizes giving priority to pilot projects, encouraging active exploration and allowing the adoption of different and transitional systems and policy arrangements, but clearly points out that pilot projects need to be authorized. In the past, many places have followed the trend of pilot projects, there are good experience, but also blindness.

He also said that the program itself also summed up a lot of local pilot experience, the reform from the local pilot to the national revitalization. For example, "exploring the establishment of a risk guarantee fund system for industrial and commercial capital agricultural land lease" is a summary of the experience of Wuhan. Improving and expanding the pilot projects such as linking the increase and decrease of urban and rural construction land and land tickets is a summary of the experience of Chongqing.

"many references are a summary of the past, and the whole plan is still relatively sound and cautious," says Lu Dewen, an associate professor at the China Rural Governance Research Center at Huazhong University of Science and Technology.