Re-discussion on the withdrawal of Rural Homestead

I. introduction

With the acceleration of urbanization, China's rural population migrates to cities and towns on a large scale, and the problem of rural homestead withdrawal has become increasingly prominent. Under the situation of economical use of land, topics such as the use of rural homestead, the establishment of homestead withdrawal mechanism and the reform of rural homestead system have been endowed with many theoretical and practical significance. To sum up, there are mainly the following five points: first, it is considered that the current rural settlements occupy a large scale and the utilization efficiency is low, resulting in a waste of land resources, which is not conducive to the protection of the red line of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land. Second, it thinks that the development of industrialization and urbanization brings the paradox of the decrease of rural population and the increase of rural construction land, which is not conducive to the intensive use of land and the improvement of farmers' lives. Third, it is considered that the current homestead management system hinders the realization of the value of land elements and farmers' property rights, which is not conducive to the overall development of urban and rural areas and the objective requirements of the marketization of resource allocation. Fourth, it is considered that the establishment of homestead exit mechanism should have economic and social foundation, the current social situation already has economic and policy conditions, we should seize the opportunity and reform as soon as possible. Fifth, it is considered that the establishment of homestead withdrawal mechanism is conducive to the urban transfer of rural population, accelerate the process of urbanization and promote the efficient use of land resources. As for how to establish the withdrawal mechanism of homestead, scholars mainly have the following three suggestions: the first is to establish a perfect system of homestead use and transfer to ensure the realization of the value of land assets and restrain many problems caused by farmers' free land occupation. The second is to improve the mechanism of rural homestead replacement, arrangement and reclamation, and guide farmers to withdraw from homestead in an orderly manner through supporting policies and funds. The third is to reform the management system of rural homestead, liberalize the circulation of the right to the use of homestead, protect farmers' property rights and interests, and improve their living conditions.

From the rural research situation of the author and his team in recent years, the above discussions on the utilization of rural homestead and the establishment of homestead exit mechanism are mostly specious, which is inconsistent with the general rural situation, which accounts for 95% of the total. At present, the emergence of the problem of rural homestead utilization is not only related to the rural land system, the urban-rural dual system and the imperfect social security system, but also to China's development strategy, economic structure and population structure. Farmers' mobility and household planning model are important factors affecting the withdrawal of homestead. The problems such as hollow village, multiple houses in one family, houses with small property rights and illegal circulation of homestead are attributed to the lag of the legal system and the nature of homestead welfare, which is not only far from the reality of the vast rural areas, but also has logical problems of argumentation. In view of this, the author attempts to respond from three aspects: the mechanism of population mobility, the nature of rural homestead and the utilization of rural homestead, and discusses the causes and social harm of the general rural homestead problem. and try to put forward a long-term sustainable exit plan of homestead without too much resource investment.

II. The connotation and utilization efficiency of rural homestead

1. Local knowledge and connotation of homestead

At present, the political and scientific circles have not formed a unified understanding of the connotation of rural homestead. Many legal documents do not clearly define the connotation and denotation of homestead, while scholars classify and define rural homestead according to different standards. From the existing research, there are mainly four views on the definition of rural homestead: first, it is believed that rural homestead is used by farmers' families to build housing, including housing, ancillary housing and courtyard land. Second, it is considered that the rural homestead is the residential land built by farmers, which is allocated by rural collective economic organizations and used by farmers for a long time. Third, it is considered that rural homestead is the land allocated to farmers by rural collective economic organizations to ensure the living needs of farmers, including housing bases, courtyards, auxiliary housing (kitchens, warehouses, toilets), biogas digesters, livestock sheds, firewood and grass stacks, and so on. Fourth, it is considered that the rural homestead is the blank land with and without buildings in the countryside. The academic controversy mainly focuses on the following aspects: first, whether the courtyard belongs to the homestead, second, whether the green land in front and back of the house belongs to the homestead, and third, where the geographical boundary is, and what is the relationship between the homestead with house, the homestead without house and the planned homestead.

There are great differences in rural social regions in China, and the folk understanding of rural homestead is very different. This different understanding makes it difficult to count the total amount of rural homestead. In the countryside of Jingmen City, Hubei Province, the homestead is a large area of land that extends around with the housing area as the center. A standard homestead is mainly composed of housing land, grain floor, garden, vegetable garden and Weir pond. This has become a kind of "local knowledge" at the rural level and has been widely accepted. Therefore, the area of rural homestead in Jingmen City is larger, the average household area is 2Mui 3 mu, and the homestead area of a small number of farmers even reaches 7Mu8 mu, mainly covering a large area of garden and grain floor. In the first and second round of land and resources survey, the surveyors took the concept of homestead as the measurement standard, which led to the statistical expansion of the area of homestead.

In fact, in the rural areas of the central and western regions, the area of homestead in many places is relatively large, such as the rural houses in Sichuan Province and Chongqing generally have a Bazi in front and a forest plate after them, which are generally regarded by farmers as homestead. So, the average residential land area is 2 Mu. And in the eyes of many farmers, there is little difference between the nature of homestead and cultivated land, and only the land that is conducive to production and life is valuable. The classification of agricultural land, construction land and unused land determined by the Land Management Law of the people's Republic of China has little to do with farmers' real life, and farmers do not care much about those abstract land rights.

2. Farmers' theme and homestead utilization

Farmers understand homestead from the perspective of social function, which means that the relevant composition of homestead is very important to farmers 'production and life, and farmers will change their understanding and utilization mode of homestead with the change of times, so the utilization efficiency of rural homestead is not low. For example, in some rural areas of Jingmen City, with the progress of technology and industrial development, the function of weir pond is in a state of atrophy, some weir pond is even abandoned, and farmers no longer regard weir pond as homestead. The problem is that the academic community has generally formed a consensus that rural homestead has a large amount of idle land, extensive use of auxiliary land such as crop fields, gardens, weirs and ponds, and low utilization efficiency. For example, Wang Xudong's statistics show that from 1997 to 2008, the rural population decreased by 14%, while the village land increased by about 4%, showing a reverse trend of population decrease and land increase. The total land for rural households exceeded 1 mu, and the per capita residential land was as high as 229 square meters, much higher than the prescribed 150 square meters. Based on the large scale, low utilization rate and scattered, chaotic and empty phenomenon of rural residential land, scholars draw the conclusion that rural land resources are seriously wasted and rural land remediation potential is huge, so they call for the policy of linking urban and rural construction land increase and decrease and the policy of coordinating urban and rural land remediation.

In this regard, the author does not comment on whether the measurement and calculation logic of rural residential land is scientific under the background of uncertain concept of homestead, but only explains the utilization efficiency of homestead from the utilization of rural homestead restricted by macro-structure. At present, there are different versions of the number of farmers in China, with more than 700 million, 800 million and 900 million common versions. The author agrees with He Xuefeng's judgment that China's current rural population is about 880 million. On the premise of China's sustained and rapid economic development, there will still be 700 - 800 million people in rural areas even if the urbanization rate increases to 50% in the next 50 years. That is to say, for a long time to come, most farmers will still find it difficult to settle down in cities, or they will have to move between urban and rural areas like migratory birds. The non-withdrawal of rural homestead has a lot to do with the instability of farmers 'income and the difficulty in replacing the production function of homestead. From the perspective of farmer theme, we can find that the use of rural homestead is reasonable, and the waste of land resources is only a superficial understanding from top to bottom.

Farmers 'income mainly comes from two parts: one is to work outside the home, the other is to farm at home. On the one hand, China's economic structure and its position in the international system determine that most of the migrant workers have meager incomes and are difficult to complete the urban reproduction of labor force. With the rapid advancement of urbanization and industrialization, a large number of farmers poured into cities, which made the labor market oversupply and the income space of urban migrant workers was further compressed. On the other hand, in the context of resource constraints and economic globalization, agricultural growth does not increase income for a long time. Thus, agricultural income and income from part-time work together to support small farmers, both indispensable. Under the constraints of the above macro-structure, rural homestead should not only assume the living function of home ownership and the production function of guaranteeing agricultural income, but also assume the social protection function of coping with market risks.

In order to get better access to family development funds, the elderly generally farm in the village to support themselves, while the young go out to earn money to support small families. To some extent, this has resulted in idle homesteads. Influenced by farmers 'urban employment, some homesteads have been idle for a long time, while others have been idle for a short time. It is rare for homesteads to be abandoned permanently. Therefore, the plot ratio of 0.268 per household calculated by some scholars from the perspective of village spatial morphology shows that the use efficiency of rural homestead is low, which does not conform to the reality of rural homestead utilization. The efficiency of homestead use should be considered from the angle of small farmer's plan and from the function of social protection. To discuss the efficiency of homestead utilization based on residential living conditions, without considering the mode of small farmers 'planning and the mobility mechanism of farmers, does not conform to the reality of rural society.