Theoretical and Policy issues on the Reform of farmland property Rights

[core hint] when carrying out urban and rural overall planning experiments, some areas proposed to confirm the rights and issue iron certificates to farmers who are members of rural collective economic organizations to rural collective land and other resource assets. With regard to the compensation for land expropriation, the policy of "who is requisitioned to make up for who" is adopted. However, in the distribution of compensation income for land expropriation, there is the problem of the invalidation of farmers' land ownership certificate. Some farmers share the compensation equally among all members of collective economic organizations according to the existing legal requirements, and finally their interest demands can be realized.

The contradiction between membership right and usufruct of Rural Collective Agricultural Land

The decision of the third Plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee put forward: "stabilize the rural land contract relationship and keep it unchanged for a long time." In some areas, when carrying out urban and rural overall planning experiments, it is proposed that rural collective land and other resource assets should be granted rights and certificates to farmers who are members of rural collective economic organizations. With regard to the compensation for land expropriation, the policy of "who is requisitioned to make up for who" is adopted. However, in the distribution of compensation income for land expropriation, there is the problem of the invalidation of farmers' land ownership certificate. Some farmers share the compensation equally among all members of collective economic organizations according to the existing legal requirements, and finally their interest demands can be realized. The Beijing Municipal Government also stipulates that "when it comes to land requisition for national construction, whether it is land compensation for farmers' contracted land, villagers' homestead, collective construction land, etc., it shall be evenly distributed or quantified equally among the members of the collective economic organization when the land requisition plan is determined."

Power is faced with institutional bottlenecks, and it may be overturned when it is done. What does "irrefutable evidence" mean? This reflects the contradiction between laws and between laws and policies. Article 59 of the property Law stipulates that "the immovable property and movable property collectively owned by farmers shall be collectively owned by the members of the collective"; Article 5 of the Rural Land contract Law also provides for the rights of members. The above legal provisions are concerned with the membership rights of farmers to agricultural land, in which the idea of "natural land rights" is implied, which is a kind of individual rights, which dies with the departure or death of members. The "decision" of the third Plenary session of the 17th CPC Central Committee proposed: "farmers should be given more full and secure rights to contract and manage land, and the existing land contract relationship should remain stable and unchanged for a long time." Article 26 of the Rural Land contract Law stipulates: "during the contract period, the contract issuer shall not recover the contracted land." Article 27 stipulates: "during the contract period, the contracting party shall not adjust the contracted land." Article 32 stipulates: "the right to contracted management of land obtained through household contracts may be transferred by subcontract, lease, exchange, transfer or other means in accordance with the law." The above legal provisions are related to farmers' usufruct of agricultural land, which implies the property right principle of "no increase in life and no decrease in death". In practice, individual rights and property rights are bound to conflict, and the claims of the two rights can find a legal basis.

In order to solve the contradiction between individual rights and property rights, a reform idea that can be discussed is to transform the rights of individual members of rural collective economic organizations into the rights of members taking farmers as units. The rights of peasant household members of collective economic organizations over the contractual management rights of land and other collective assets of the organization are solidified to a certain point, so that the rights of members and property rights are unified. In the specific operation, it involves the problem of land adjustment in confirming the right. If it remains unchanged for a long time, we think it should remain unchanged for a long time beyond the term of the contract. But where does it start? Is the confirmed land the land acquired by farmers in the second round of contracting or the adjusted land? Can it be adjusted before determining the starting point? The experiment in some places is that in the process of confirming the right, on the basis of fully respecting the wishes of the masses, the land adjustment and how to adjust it will be discussed and solved by the masses, adhere to the "major stability and small adjustment," and after the actual measurement of the contracted land has confirmed the right, we will implement the principle of "increasing the number of people but not increasing the number of people and reducing the number of people without reducing land," and the right of contracted management with households as a unit will remain unchanged for a long time. The problems of membership changes such as extramarital daughters, superfluous sons-in-law and newborns are solved in the household, and the dispute over the right of contracted management has changed from an administrative dispute between the individual and the collective to a civil dispute over property rights within the family. no matter how the population changes in the future, the land will no longer be adjusted. The conditions under which farmers have the right to dispose of and transfer their land contractual management rights are determined by law.

There are more than 200 million small farmers in China's rural areas, nearly 270 million of the rural labor force's main employment channel is not agriculture, and the main means of production they rely on for survival is not land. At present, in rural areas, the proportion of agricultural income from land in total income continues to decline, the living security function of land is gradually weakened, and people have gradually accepted that "death does not decrease, life does not increase". It is possible to change the land from a "fair" function to a "efficiency" function to achieve "long-term change" beyond the contract period. However, this exploration has broken through the framework of the rural land contract law, and must be followed by the revision of the rural land contract law and the corresponding laws.