The farmland system in China has become stereotyped.

Recently, when I returned home, my aging parents said that the contracted land at home had been cultivated by distant grandchildren, and each mu of land was given 500 yuan per year. This is equivalent to rent collection. In addition to my parents 'share of land, my married sister's share of land was also left behind. When I was a student, I also enjoyed the right to contract land in the second round of land contracting according to regulations. However, after I worked, the policy of "no increase in life and no decrease in death" happened, so the contracted land was not adjusted. In this way, my family's land was relatively large, with several acres. There are already many families like my family who can't transfer their cultivated land to relatives and neighbors. Since they are all acquaintances, they don't need to sign any contracts. There is no fixed amount of money to be given. It's almost OK. However, the market is also there, at present at least mu (year) are 600 yuan.

When talking about contracted land, parents think with their simple sense of fairness that it is unreasonable that the contracted land will not be adjusted for a long time, resulting in different amounts of land owned by each household per capita. I said, my married sister is in the village, and she has not been allocated land in her in-laws 'house. In the end, I have one more contracted land. Besides, you will not return my land to the collective. Of course, it's a joke. However, in connection with the recent major changes in land policy, the agricultural land system is indeed worthy of in-depth consideration. Farmland, strictly speaking, in addition to contracted farmland, also includes rural construction land and homestead. What is discussed below mainly refers to contracted farmland.

Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the household contract responsibility system was established in China, the debate on farmland system has been a hot topic in academic circles. Generally speaking, there are two main views: one view can be called "privatization school", mainly liberal economists, who advocate that land privatization or euphemism "giving farmers full property ownership of land" is the fundamental way to solve China's rural problems. Another view can be called "rural construction school", represented by Wen Tiejun and He Xuefeng, whose basic idea is to rebuild rural community by establishing farmers 'cooperative organization and cultural construction. Although they have not put forward clear suggestions on farmland system, they basically agree with the current two-tier management system of unified division, especially emphasize its "unification" side, think that rural collectives should control more resources, and do not agree with more land rights owned by farmers. However, from the perspective of the decision-making direction of the ruling level, the state's reform thinking on the agricultural land system is consistent and gradually deepened, that is, adhering to the household contract responsibility system under collective ownership of land, which not only denies the privatization direction, but also continuously and stably solidifies the existing land contract relationship. The reform direction of this system has been stable since 2003 and 2004 since the second round of land contracting. In the words of the peasants, it means "no increase in life and no decrease in death." This reform idea has been further clarified in the recently issued Opinions on Guiding the Orderly Circulation of Rural Land Contracted Management Rights to Develop Moderate Scale Management of Agriculture (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), which points out that it is necessary to "improve the registration system of land contracted management rights" and "promote the registration and certification of land contracted management rights." Therefore, some scholars compare it with the traditional Chinese permanent tenancy system, but there are at least two differences between the existing contract system and the permanent tenancy system: one is that the land under the contract system is initially divided equally; the other is that the contract right is limited to the collective scope. The collectivity based on the production teams of the commune period is the legacy of socialism and corresponds to the traditional geographical relationship of the countryside. This time, it is also clear that "the transfer of contracted land by way of transfer shall, in principle, be carried out among the members of the collective economic organization." This paper holds that the promulgation of the Opinions indicates that China's agricultural land system based on and centered on the household contract responsibility system, or the basic economic system of China's rural areas, has tended to be finalized.

In addition to this contract system, the current farmland system also includes a series of supporting systems:

First, land use control under the red line of 1.8 billion mu of cultivated land. The Opinions reiterated that "we should adhere to the strictest farmland protection system" and put forward four "prohibitions" and one "resolute prohibition".

The second is the land circulation under the separation of ownership, contract right and management right. "Opinions" put forward "adhere to the collective ownership of rural land, stabilize farmers contract rights, release the right to land management." This system does not touch the core of collective ownership, but also greatly improves the scale, scope and speed of land circulation.

The third is to unify the protection of farmers 'land rights and interests under urban and rural household registration. The Opinions of the State Council on Further Promoting the Reform of the Household Registration System, issued in July 2014, stressed that "withdrawal of land contractual management rights, homestead use rights, and collective income distribution rights shall not be used as conditions for farmers to settle in cities." Theoretically, this is a historical compensation for farmers 'great efforts and provides basic institutional support for rural areas to play their role as reservoirs and stabilizers of China's modernization.

Fourth, the industrial and commercial capital restriction under the land scale circulation. The main purpose of the Opinions is to promote land scale management, proposing "actively cultivating new business entities and developing various forms of moderate scale management", but at the same time pointing out that it is necessary to "strengthen the supervision and risk prevention of contracted land leased by industrial and commercial enterprises", and clearly proposing a series of restrictions such as "clear upper limit control for long-term and large-scale leased land contracted by industrial and commercial enterprises".

It can be seen that the design of the current farmland system is almost perfect, considering the interests of all aspects, and flexible. Of course, the "privatizers" think that it may not be complete enough, and that land is still not free to buy and sell. In fact, farmers have permanent land contract rights. If the lease time is long enough, how much difference does it have from private ownership? Moreover, even if free trade is allowed, how much money can farmers be sold as capital for non-agricultural industries and urban settlements under the realistic conditions of land use control and low agricultural returns? On the contrary, the risks brought by private ownership of land cannot be ignored. The complexity of China's problems lies in the fact that as long as a small opening is made, the powerful and powerful will enlarge it infinitely. Here, do not overestimate the state's control ability. As long as we persist in public ownership of land and do not relax, the danger of land annexation caused by extortion is not enough to worry about. For the "rural construction faction", the solidification of land rights and interests leads to the inability to adjust the land regularly, which will make some farmers landless and unfair. Some scholars even believe that the post-80s and post-90s generation entering the city will lead to very serious social stability problems because they have not been assigned to contracted land and have returned to the city and returned to their hometown. On closer inspection, it is an exaggeration. The contracting of contracted land in rural areas is based on population as the standard and family as the unit. After the second round of land contracting, the next generation of farmers who have not been allocated contracted land does not mean that their families have no land. Generally speaking, in a family, when the old man dies, the woman marries, and there are situations like my study and military service, the land will remain and there will be more contracted land. Families with less contracted land are generally less contracted land because there are fewer elderly people and more children and grandchildren in the family when the contracted land is allocated. When the children and grandchildren marry daughters-in-law and have children, the contracted land will be even less. But then again, the daughter-in-law he married still had land for his family. This kind of uneven distribution of land in space and generations exists at any time as long as it stops adjusting. If farmers really want to plant land, they will not have no land to plant. Rural areas are a society of acquaintances. Once farmers contract land and do not plant it, they will generally transfer it to neighbors and relatives with compensation, low price or free of charge. As for the potential threat posed by the "proletarianization" of the "second generation of peasants" in cities, it is useless to rely on the forced retention of a contracted land for them in the countryside, or should it be based on China's industrial upgrading and improvement of social governance policies. As for the "rural construction faction" worried that the solidification of farmers 'rights and interests would weaken collective strength, resulting in the lack of capacity for rural public goods supply. That's a really big problem. At the same time as the Opinions were issued, the Central Committee also issued the Pilot Program for Actively Developing Farmers 'Share Cooperation to Endow Collective Assets with Share Power Reform. The idea of the state is to restructure collective economic organizations on a new economic basis. In the past, collective economic organizations were basically empty shells, and had little to do with farmers except land contracting. Now we should let the peasants increase their income through the restructuring of collective economic organizations. But the biggest problem is that there is no collective economic organization to be formed for the vast rural areas lacking collective assets.

My view is that the State's vision in this regard is the lesser of two evils. Rural cadres are a special group of people since the founding of our country. They have played an irreplaceable role in the rural transformation in history. However, from the perspective of de-ideology, rural cadres are a group of people who "give a needle and definitely move a camel for you". If they were given the power to regulate their land periodically, they would do far more harm than good. Just like the tax and fee reform, in order to make use of rural cadres to collect a small amount of taxes and fees, farmers throughout the country have made complaints. Once it is abolished, this problem will immediately disappear, and of course it will bring about the problem of "vacuum management". However, for the ruling party, it is better for village cadres to do nothing than to do chaos. We should first solve chaos. As for the supply of rural public goods, it is too little to expect ideas on limited land resources, or to rely on increasing the effective investment of the state, including the introduction of social capital and the improvement of rural governance structure. The culture of rural sages advocated by the state and the cooperation of farmers advocated by the "rural construction school" should also be actively encouraged.

Of course, there are some flaws in the current agricultural land system:

First, to whom should agricultural subsidies be given? "Opinions" proposed that "the original grain direct subsidies, improved seed subsidies, agricultural comprehensive subsidies by the contracted farmers and the inflow side to determine through consultation, the new part should be tilted to the main grain production scale management." Since the contractor obviously has an advantage in the game, the subsidy will naturally belong to the contractor. Whether this is reasonable, and even how the entire agricultural subsidy can be distributed fairly and effectively to play a positive role, deserves further consideration.

Second, how to do if all the contracted households are not in the village? In the past, after the peasant family entered the city, the contract law stipulated that the land could be recovered. It is now clearly stipulated that contracted land cannot be taken back as a condition for entering the city. In this way there will be so-called "absentee peasants," just as there were formerly "absentee landlords." In fact, this kind of situation has already appeared. Some qualified peasants have settled in cities, and the elderly have also been brought into cities. This is easy to handle. After all, the old man is still alive. After a few years, the old man will die and the next generation will become urban residents. How to deal with their land contract rights? In this regard, the current policy should reserve some space.

Third, how to distribute the proceeds of land demolition? China is still in the process of industrialization and modernization for a long time, and a large number of major project demolition and urbanization demolition are still inevitable. However, the Opinions clearly state: in principle, the registration of the right to contracted management of land shall be confirmed to the household to the land. Then once these land that has been confirmed to the household is demolished, the compensation income should naturally belong to the contractor. Other contractors will inevitably be jealous and feel unfair. Moreover, although the relocated households have a large amount of money, once they have spent all of it, they will become landless farmers again. What about it? If according to the wishes of collective villagers, the compensation income for demolition is uniformly distributed by the collective, and then the contracted land is readjusted, it is obviously not allowed by the current policy. How to balance the inherent reasonable value of policy, law and rural ethics must be considered.