The right of land management should be returned to the farmers

"in the past, there was a big debate. There was an opinion that the ownership of land should be returned to the peasants, while another opinion was that collective ownership should be upheld. Is the separation of powers a way to reach a consensus to resolve this dispute? Personally, I think it is possible. Wu Jinglian, a famous economist and professor of economics at Baosteel at China Europe International Business School, made the above remarks at the fourth China International Agricultural and Business Summit Forum in 2015.

The "separation of rights" of rural land formally appeared for the first time in the "opinions on guiding the orderly transfer of contracted Management Rights of Rural Land to develop appropriate scale Management of Agriculture" examined and adopted in September last year.

On September 29th, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Central leading Group for comprehensively deepening Reform, presided over the fifth meeting of the Central leading Group for comprehensively deepening Reform. The meeting examined documents such as "opinions on guiding the orderly transfer of the right to contracted Management of Rural Land to develop appropriate scale Management of Agriculture" and suggested that it should be further revised and improved in the light of the discussion at the meeting and submitted for approval in accordance with the procedures.

The so-called separation of powers, Xi Jinping pointed out in his speech: "on the premise of adhering to the collective ownership of rural land, we should promote the separation of the right of contract and the right of management, and form a pattern of the separation of ownership, the right of contract, and the right of management, and the transfer of management rights."

Industry experts believe that in the new historical period, comprehensively deepening the reform of the rural land system and promoting the separation of ownership, contracting and management rights of rural land is a major adjustment of the existing productive forces and production relations in rural areas. it will greatly liberate the productive forces and have a far-reaching historical impact.

Wu Jinglian said: after the promulgation of this document, it seems that the reform of rural areas and agriculture has officially begun. The former is the premise of the latter for the orderly transfer of management rights and the appropriate scale operation of agriculture. To achieve this, it is necessary to establish a property right system. However, on some major issues, there are very different views at home. One opinion is that the ownership of land should be returned to the peasants, while the other is that collective ownership should be upheld.

Wu Jinglian said that ownership is the land right in the traditional sense, and the right of management is the land right in the traditional land ownership system. He said that he advocated the return of land rights to farmers, but the so-called "return to farmers" refers to the land rights (management rights), not land rights (ownership).

At the same time, Wu Jinglian said that there is an urgent need to establish a unified, open, competitive and orderly market for the transfer of land management rights, including subcontracting, leasing, exchange, transfer, and so on. As long as it is an independent form of property rights, all property rights functions should be reflected in the market.