Examining Farmers' property Rights of cultivated Land from a Public Perspective

To give farmers more property rights, land is the core. At present, some people think that cultivated land can become property to obtain income and an important means to increase property income. In reality, many places are keen to promote land circulation. On the one hand, they create conditions for large-scale agricultural operation and modernization transformation; on the other hand, they consciously or unconsciously push up land prices in circulation, and some places also set minimum protection prices for land circulation. However, under the higher land circulation price, it is difficult for pure grain management to maintain operation, so hidden dangers are buried for non-agricultural and non-grain. This prompts us to reflect on the question: What is the function of farmland? Where did the property rights to farmland come from? What is the relationship between farmers and farmland?

Under the feudal land system, cultivated land was the most important property of farmers, and buying houses and land was the most important embodiment of farmers 'wealth. Land not only provides security for the owner's basic needs, but can also be leased to others for rent. Rent was first seen as 'the surplus of the tiller's harvest after the cost'(William Petty), and later as 'the result of an increase in the price of agricultural produce'(Ricardo). Today, it seems that many phenomena are difficult to explain from an economic point of view. Is rent surplus? Is rent created by labour? In reality, the fact that part of land rent has seriously exceeded the output value of cultivated land requires us to re-understand the concept of land rent, as well as the peasants 'property rights attached to cultivated land and the national agricultural security.

To accurately understand the contemporary problem of cultivated land rent, two problems need to be recognized. One is the nature and function of cultivated land, the other is the relationship between farmers and cultivated land. In today's society, cultivated land is not only a means of increasing farmers 'income, but also a guarantee for the country to realize agricultural security. Agriculture, as the basis of human existence, is essentially embodied as public goods within a country. Our country implements the strictest farmland protection system, delimits basic farmland and implements the farmland use control system. Therefore, cultivated land is not a commodity in the general sense, and agricultural products are not completely regulated by the market at will. There is an international definition of agricultural security: within a country, anyone can afford and buy enough agricultural products at any time. This anyone, of course including the poor, first of all the poor can afford. This limits the character of agricultural production as a commodity, and in essence it does not abide by the commodity exchange principle of "scarcity is expensive." Therefore, the huge food needs of 1.3 billion people are the most important part of the national strategy at all times. Therefore, although higher returns can be obtained through agriculture, from the perspective of political security to ensure food demand, grain production in a certain area must be guaranteed under the premise of limited space for increasing output per unit area, which to a certain extent reduces the degree and space for obtaining huge profits through agriculture. In any country, the prices of major agricultural products will not be allowed to be free, which is the most essential difference between agriculture and other industries.

Land has two meanings to farmers: one is the significance of cultivated land to farmers. The significance of cultivated land to farmers does not lie in its property significance, but in the guarantee of farmers 'lives. This is more important and stable guarantee than any property, and it is the most basic guarantee. It can also be said to provide farmers with a stable source of livelihood, or understood as a stable way of employment. With a piece of land, farmers will have a basic source of livelihood, they will have nothing to worry about, they will have things to do, they will have spiritual sustenance, and they will have something to do and enjoy in old age. This is difficult to measure with property value. When farmers lose land, they lose their source of livelihood and their material and spiritual life relying on land. There is no corresponding market price compensation standard for losing land. If compensation is to be given to landless farmers, it is not to obtain so-called property income similar to land rent, but to provide stable employment, old-age care and living security.

Second, farmers 'obligations and responsibilities to cultivated land. That is, farmers have the obligation and responsibility to make good use of cultivated land, protect it and produce agricultural products that meet the needs of the country; therefore, they are not allowed to waste land, change the use of land, reduce the fertility of land and destroy cultivated land. Subsidies to farmers are a common measure in various countries to compensate farmers for the costs or losses incurred by them in fulfilling their obligations and responsibilities. In the nature of agricultural public goods (of course, it can also be extended to the public welfare of farmland), without government subsidies, farmers are difficult to obtain average social income.

However, in theory and reality, there is often a certain deviation in the understanding of the relationship between farmers and cultivated land. Some excessively advocate cultivated land property right, some overemphasize cultivated land state-owned attribute. Excessive claims on property rights of cultivated land, coupled with the joint promotion of administrative forces and industrial and commercial capital, will lead to continuous increase in circulation rents, which will not only make agricultural management difficult to sustain, but also may harm the sustainable development of agriculture and the enthusiasm of agricultural operators. In order to maintain agricultural production under high land rent conditions, the government may have to pay land circulation subsidies, agricultural production subsidies and other costs. On the other hand, some localities, in the name of developing modern agriculture, forcibly promote the circulation of cultivated land, providing farmers with no other guarantee than land rent. The appearance of these two undesirable states has nothing to do with the wrong farmland relationship. No matter which state is unfavorable to agriculture and farmers, it should be avoided as much as possible.

Based on the above analysis, from the perspective of agricultural public goods and cultivated land property rights, the current land circulation needs to deal with the following problems.

First of all, it is necessary to flexibly and steadily handle individual rights and public obligations attached to cultivated land. Cultivated land is the unity of rights and obligations for contractors, and rights cannot be emphasized while obligations are ignored. The separation of land contracting rights and management rights is not the separation of rights and obligations. The obligation to protect the quantity and quality of cultivated land cannot be lost because of the separation of contract rights and management rights. Therefore, we should pave the way for promoting land appreciation and agricultural efficiency through perfect social protection system and land withdrawal mechanism. We should not only let farmers have stable property rights and social protection, but also not affect the safety of cultivated land. Agricultural operators should not pay more than the normal market price for the transfer of land, so as to promote competitive and sustainable agricultural development. In the reality of peasants as a vulnerable group, it is particularly important to emphasize that they cannot be forced to migrate off the land for any reason.

Secondly, farmers 'land property rights are mainly reflected in the process of land use transformation and appreciation, not in the process of circulation. Therefore, after the land is transformed and value-added, farmers should obtain sufficient property rights protection, which is essentially compensation for the employment, living, pension and medical protection of land-lost farmers. Document No.1 of the Central Committee in 2014 clearly pointed out that farmers should be granted more property rights, including farmers 'share possession of collective assets, income, mortgage, guarantee, inheritance rights and usufruct of farmers' homestead. In order to continuously improve the added value of agriculture in the process of reform and development, farmers should be given weight in the process of income distribution of collective construction land, so that farmers can increase their property income through various system designs.

Third, the spontaneous transfer of family farms contributes to the sustainable development of agriculture. The survey found that among the many ways of land transfer, the transfer to their relatives, friends, neighbors, etc. has the lowest cost and strong stability. This kind of circulation occurs naturally, spontaneously and voluntarily, which is more conducive to social stability and land protection. Therefore, farmers should be guided to circulate land spontaneously through market mechanism. Transfer to farmers, and then form family farms conducive to the sustainable development of agriculture. Family farms not only retain the advantages of family management, but also partially overcome the disadvantages of small farmers. Family farm scale is moderate scale management, which is helpful to stimulate the demand of family farm for science and technology, organization, finance and agricultural machinery, and facilitate the construction of sustainable agricultural system guarantee. At the same time, family farms are also the lowest operating costs and the most effective form of organization to contribute to agriculture. The government should support and guide the transfer of land to family farms, which should be the direction of future agricultural development.

Farmers displaced from their land should receive appropriate compensation. However, such income is not only the income of land rent nature, but also the main body of farmland protection obligation.