How to turn "dead resources" into "living capital" in rural areas?

Wu Changcai, a villager from Huping Village, Liuhao Town, Yicheng, Hubei Province, who has lived in a two-story building for nearly 30 years, received an "fixed property right certificate" marking the area of agricultural houses and homestead at the end of last year. Wu Changcai said, "under the property right certificate of the farmhouse, I feel at ease."

The reform of the homestead system involves the vital interests of the broad masses of farmers, and it is also an important supporting system to promote the transfer of agricultural population to cities. In the reform of the pilot homestead system in Yicheng City, we have explored unified confirmation of rights and certificates, paid use in excess of the standard, and voluntary and paid withdrawal, so as to form a "win-win" situation of increasing farmers' property income and increasing the area of rural cultivated land.

Homestead confirms the right to certify "dead assets" into "living capital"

Yicheng City, Hubei Province, located in the middle reaches of the Han River, is one of the 33 pilot projects of rural land system reform in China, undertaking the pilot task of homestead system reform. Since March last year, Yicheng has successfully launched the pilot project through eight villages in the early stage, and has now been rolled out throughout the city.

The first thing to break the ice in the rural homestead reform is to confirm the power. Yicheng organized more than 500 cadres to enter the village to find out the basic situation of the homestead of more than 100,000 peasant households in the city, and at the same time set up a real estate registration office to carry out farmers' housing survey and ownership investigation.

On the basis of properly solving the problems left over by history, Yicheng City has issued fixed property rights certificates to farmers in batches. The reporter saw in the four groups of Huping Village, Liuhou Town, that 47 households, including Wu Changcai, the area of the homestead, the right holders, and the time of construction, and other property rights information were posted on the bulletin board to facilitate villagers' supervision.

Homestead and rural houses confirmed the right to issue certificates, for farmers to apply for mortgage loans to remove the final "obstacles". Zhao Baochuan, a villager of Huangchong Village in Liushui Town, Yicheng City, recently mortgaged his farm house and homestead and borrowed 100000 yuan from the bank to develop ecological lotus roots.

Zhao Baochuan said: in the past, when farmers handled loan business, the farm house could not be mortgaged without a property right certificate, so it could only be guaranteed by three households, and the loan line was only 30,000 to 50,000 yuan. "now after the certificate is confirmed, the value of the farm house can flow."

Wang Dazhao, governor of the Yicheng branch of the people's Bank of China, said that the first batch of rural house mortgage loans totaling 460000 yuan have all been received, mainly for farmers' transfer of land, digging ponds for fish culture, and so on. "the total valuation of rural houses in the city is more than 20 billion yuan. After confirming the right to issue certificates, we can turn the past 'dead assets' into farmers''living capital."

Delimiting the benchmark range, charging homestead for over-standard paid use of "ice breaking"

For a long time, the phenomenon of too large homestead area, random construction and multiple houses in one family, coupled with the poor exit mechanism, has become a bottleneck restricting the intensive use of rural land and the transfer of agricultural population to cities. Exploring the paid use and withdrawal of homestead is an important task of Yicheng reform pilot project.

According to the regulations of land management in Hubei Province, the homestead area of farmers using construction land can not exceed 200 square meters. According to statistics, among the 106600 farmers in Yicheng City, there are 86300 households whose homestead area exceeds the standard, accounting for more than 80 per cent.

How to implement the paid use of homestead? Villagers reflect that paid use must take into account objective conditions and historical factors. For example, in villages with more arable land and more agricultural machinery for growing grain, the housing demand for agricultural machinery should be taken into account in the homestead. "if there is an across-the-board charge for the excessive area of the homestead, it will be difficult to convince the public."

After soliciting opinions from many parties, Yicheng decided to adopt the method of "clear benchmark, delineation, villager autonomy" and establish a paid use mechanism combined with the reality of each village: to establish a differentiated rural benchmark low price according to the market town, central village, and ordinary village; to delimit three charging ranges, where the homestead is less than 200 square meters, free of charge; the excess area is multiplied by different coefficients according to the benchmark land price.

"villager autonomy is the basis for the smooth implementation of paid use of homestead." Ding Guofeng, deputy head of the Yicheng Homestead Reform leading Group, said that the charging coefficient of homestead is determined through villagers' autonomy, and special groups such as families in need and the disabled are given care or reduction. All proceeds from the paid use of homestead shall be publicly used by village collective organizations and subject to the supervision of the villagers.

Wu Changcai calculated an account to the reporter: the area of his homestead exceeds the standard of 29 square meters, the average homestead area of the whole village is 243 square meters, the benchmark land price of Huping village is 1 yuan per square meter, and the charge coefficient of more than 200 square meters in the village is 0.5; the payment coefficient of exceeding the average household area of the whole village is 1, so he needs to pay 14.5 yuan a year.

Wang Chaofu, branch secretary of Huangchong Village in Yicheng Liushui Town, said that more than 600 households in Huangchong village exceeded the standard, collecting 195000 yuan in paid user fees for the villagers, accounting for more than 98 percent of the number of households receivable. "after consultation by the villagers' Congress, 70,000 yuan of the income has been used for the construction of village street lights."

Free access to paid exit channels for farmers to voluntarily withdraw from homestead one after another

Some grass-roots cadres and villagers interviewed said that when the homestead was used free of charge, the villagers were greedy, and the neighborhood homestead land boundary disputes were constantly contradictory. Now it is necessary to pay more fees to occupy more homestead, so as to ensure that farmers are more fair when they "live and have a place to live".

Yicheng makes it clear that villagers can voluntarily choose to withdraw from the right to the use of rural homestead, which will be repurchased by the village committee, and the funds will come from the projects linked to the income from the paid use of homestead and the increase or decrease of land. After the withdrawal of the villagers' homestead, it will be reclaimed into cultivated land.

At present, a total of 68 farmers in eight pilot villages in the city have chosen to withdraw from the homestead with a total area of 61.7 mu. Li Chenglin, a villager of the second group of Liutai Village in Liushui Town, once formed "one family, two houses" because of the construction of a house at the new site. After the implementation of the paid use of homestead last year, Li Chenglin chose to withdraw from the homestead of more than 300 square meters of old houses and received 7700 yuan in compensation.

Standing on the old homestead where crops were replanted, Li Chenglin said with emotion: "now the area of the homestead exceeds the standard, and at the same time, there is compensation for withdrawing from the homestead, and everyone's enthusiasm for voluntary withdrawal is very high."

Li Shi, secretary of the Yicheng Municipal CPC Committee, said that after strengthening the standardized management of examination and approval and withdrawal of homestead, if all farmers in Yicheng city who occupy more homestead voluntarily withdraw, coupled with the overall land renovation of the front dam backyard and household roads, under the condition of ensuring the development and construction of the village collective, it is expected that more than 50,000 mu of arable land can be increased.