On February 3, the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Learning and Using the Experience of the "Thousand Villages Demonstration and Ten Thousand Rectifications" Project to Effectively and Effectively Promote the Comprehensive Revitalization of Villages" made it clear that the second round of land contracts will be extended for another 30 years after the expiration of the pilot work of the whole province, which has caused great repercussions across the country. According to General Secretary Xi Jinping's proposal, "no matter how it is reformed, the collective ownership of rural land cannot be reformed, the cultivated land cannot be reduced, the grain production capacity cannot be weakened, and the interests of farmers cannot be harmed." In this regard, it is necessary for us to discuss how to embody the principle of fairness and justice in the implementation of the 30-year extension of land contracts, how to sum up and draw lessons from the experience and lessons learned since the implementation of the practice of guaranteeing production to households, and how to face up to and resolve the new changes and new situations that have emerged 40 years after the implementation of the 30-year extension of land contracts, so as to seek consensus, deepen the reform of the rural cultivated land system, and ensure that there will be no major fluctuations in the mainland's national policy of basic self-sufficiency in staple grains.
Different levels of productivity apply different business models
Cultivated land is the most basic means of production in agricultural production, and the advanced and backward agricultural productive forces are reflected in the use of cultivated land. It is an advanced productive force that can carry out protective development and use of cultivated land, continuously improve the yield and quality of crops, and meet the needs of people's lives; Otherwise, it is backward productivity.
Productivity is the ability of human beings to transform nature and obtain the means of subsistence. The relations of production are the mutual relations formed by people in the production process. According to the viewpoint of historical materialism, the level of productive forces determines the corresponding relations of production; The relations of production, in turn, react on the productive forces; Production relations that meet the requirements of the development of the productive forces can promote the development of the productive forces. Therefore, different levels of agricultural productivity have different business models.
The principle of implementing the land contract responsibility system is that the contractor "pays enough to the state, retains enough for the collective, and the rest is all for himself." In the beginning, the practice of distributing land to households was based on the equal distribution of land according to the number of households, and some peasants only contracted grain fields but did not contract responsibility fields because they had no labor force. During the second round of contracting, some peasants gave up their land contracting rights because they could not afford excessive taxes and fees. After more than 40 years of changes, about 35 percent of the rural population has changed to urban household registration, about 40 percent of the rural population works or settles in other places, and about 25 percent of the population stays in the village all year round. The extension of land for 30 years has protected the rights of 75 per cent of those who do not farm in the villages, especially those who have settled in the cities. To a certain extent, the policy protects the interests of "small land lessors" and actually harms the interests of the peasants in the villages. More importantly, the relatively fixed contract relationship that has lasted for 40 years has led many farmers to form the concept that "land contract rights are property rights" (largely reflected in real life), which has actually caused the biggest injustice in rural areas. For example, when the family first arrived at the end of the contract, there was a farmer family with five children who were all in school, and after graduation, all of them found stable jobs in the city and became city people. Although they no longer farm land, they still enjoy the government's subsidies for planting land and the transfer fee for contracted land, while the children of peasants who do not go to the city to work can only transfer the contracted land of the "city people" at a high price for farming.
The high cost of circulation is also an important reason for land abandonment. If we do not change the status quo of land contract management, it will be very difficult to fundamentally control the phenomenon of abandoned land in various localities, and it will be difficult to straighten out the agricultural productive forces and production relations, which will hinder the development and improvement of agricultural productive forces. To a certain extent, the reform of the delivery of production to households has played a positive historical role in breaking the rigid system of the people's communes, but we should not regard the delivery of production to households as an unchangeable "golden rule."
With regard to changing the mode of agricultural production, some people have given the solution of following the path of American-style capitalist agriculture, mobilizing the peasants to transfer the contracted land to urban and rural capital, and adopting a modern agricultural production mode. In fact, although the agricultural productivity of Brazil, Argentina and other countries is not low, grain production is monopolized by a few transnational capitalists, resulting in more than half of the population of the large grain-producing countries not having enough to eat. Chen Xiwen, former director of the Central Agricultural Office, said in the article "Give full play to the role of rural collective economic organizations in common prosperity" published in the 5th issue of "Agricultural Economic Issues" in 2022: "In order to take off economically, in order to expand the export of resource products, Brazil and other Latin American countries encourage large capital to go to the countryside and annex a large number of small farmers, so small farmers lose their land, lose their homes, and have to live in cities, but cities do not have the corresponding conditions and capabilities to provide employment, social security and public services for a large number of farmers who have moved to cities. As a result, huge slums with bankrupt peasants have appeared in the cities of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other countries, causing serious social problems. ”
There are also those who have simpler ideas, do not fully consider the feelings of the peasants about the land, and do not understand the complexity of the countryside enough. The reality is that since the contracted land has become the private property of the peasants, some peasants would rather the land be abandoned than transfer the contracted land.
More than 10 years ago, at a symposium, I was deeply impressed by the speeches of the two village party secretaries. A secretary from Zhejiang said that the village party branch held a villagers' meeting and obtained the consent of the villagers to decide to transform and develop a cultural tourism project, and to build a plot of more than 100 acres in the village into a sea of flowers, and the village committee paid the highest price for local land transfer. Within three days, the village committee completed the transfer procedures with more than 200 villagers. However, one of the villagers became a nail household because they did not agree, and finally annoyed the whole village, and the elderly people in the village took turns to "scold" in front of the family, and finally the family gave in and transferred out of the contracted land. After the completion of the cultural tourism project in the village, the annual income is more than 3 million yuan.
Secretary Chen, from a certain city, said that he and the party branch worked through the villagers' work, rebuilt the streets and villagers' houses, and built a commercial town; The county leaders forced the village committee to redistribute the more than 100 acres of land to the peasant households. Secretary Chen said with regret that our village has lost the opportunity to become a rich and strong village.
Five ideas for a new round of land contract management
How to carry out the three rounds of land contract operation? I think there are five lines of thought to consider.
The contracted land could be extended, but the content and manner should be changed
If the farmer households who remain in their village are willing to continue to contract land, they can extend it, but the contracted land plot should be appropriately adjusted, and the previous five or six scattered plots of land should be adjusted to one piece of land as much as possible, so as to facilitate cultivation and management. Peasant households that do not live in the village but whose household registration is still in the village still have the right to contract land, but their contracted land must be entrusted by the village committee; If there is no change in the policy, the state subsidy for farming continues to be enjoyed by the peasant households, and the village committee should pay the land transfer fee according to the land rent standard for the transferred land in the village. If a farmer has already transferred its land, it shall, in accordance with Article 36 of the Rural Land Contract Law of the People's Republic of China, stipulate that the contracting party may independently decide to transfer the land management rights to others by leasing (subcontracting), buying shares or other means in accordance with the law, and shall file with the contract issuing party and report to the village committee. For peasant households whose hukou has moved to the city, their right to contract land will be revoked, but the right to use the homestead land will not be revoked. The contracted land handed back to the villages by the peasant households who have migrated to the cities and the contracted land of the peasant households that have become extinct should be managed and used as collective property and should no longer be distributed to the peasant households. Villagers' committees may collectively manage the land in their collective hands, may take shares in cooperatives and other economic organizations to operate, and may also issue contracts for management within their own village groups. The specific use of the land recovered by the collective is decided by the villagers' assembly, and those whose household registration is not in the village have no right to vote. The contract fee or profit sharing from the collective land recovered shall be used as collective economic income for the expenses of the village committee's office, poverty alleviation and pension, social welfare, etc., and the specific details of the expenditure shall also be decided by the villagers' assembly.
At present, the policy implemented by the contracted land is that the contracted land is based on the household unit, and the villagers will not be pumped if their families die, and the new population will not make up the land. According to Article 29 of the Rural Land Contract Law of the People's Republic of China, the contracted land left by the extinct households, or the land increased by other means, shall be used to adjust the contracted land or contract it to the new population. Practice has proved that it is difficult for the village committee to enforce this article, and it is recommended that the land be reserved for the village committee to be used as mobile public land.
Vigorously promote the experience of party branches leading cooperatives
On the basis of learning from the experience of Tangyue Village, Anshun City, Guizhou Province, Yantai City, Shandong Province has adapted measures to local conditions, boldly innovated, forged ahead, and vigorously promoted cooperatives led by party branches, and in 2021, 70% of the villages in the city have established cooperatives led by party branches. The Yantai Party branch leads the cooperatives not to be managed by the village and the community, and the village community is separated, but the secretary of the village party branch serves as the chairman of the cooperative, which is an institutional regulation. In Yantai, the director of the village committee and the secretary of the party branch are "shoulder-to-shoulder". Members of village party branches and village committees should be elected by the general meeting of members of the cooperative. The village party branch initiated and drove the villagers to join the cooperative, fully respecting the villagers' autonomy in operation, and the villagers voluntarily applied to join the cooperative. The cooperatives adopt a shareholding cooperative business model, in which the villagers convert all their land, cash, labor, and other property into cash, and use cash to determine the share of shares. People from other villages and companies can also apply to join the cooperative, but the shares of foreign funds are generally controlled within 20% to ensure that the farmers in the village have a dominant position in the cooperative. The existing public land, water conservancy facilities, public property, idle land, barren mountains and other resources in the village are converted into cash shares in the cooperative. The funds invested by the government in agricultural development projects and various funds to support agriculture in the village are also converted into shares and owned by the village collective. In fact, the village collective is the largest shareholder of the cooperatives led by the party branch, and it is logical for the party branch secretary to serve as the chairman of the cooperative. After the profits of the cooperative are accumulated as a dividend fund, which is owned by the members of the cooperative and distributed according to shares. The income obtained by the village collective from the cooperative according to the equity held by the village shall be owned by the registered people of the whole village and shall be used for public utilities, public welfare undertakings or investment in other industries of the whole village. The specific operation of cooperatives shall be managed in the form of a company system. For example, the orchard management team is composed of people elected by the general meeting, and other members of the cooperative participate in the orchard labor, which is settled according to daily labor, monthly wages or contract labor, and can also hire workers from other villages. At the end of the year, the net income of the orchard, the management team withdraws management fees and bonuses on a pro-rata basis. The Yantai Party branch led the cooperatives, which fully mobilized the enthusiasm of the villagers, and each cooperative has its own characteristics.
The Yantai Party branch leads the cooperative, in fact, it bundles the collective ownership of land and the contracted management rights of the villagers, and uses the land and other resources in the village to invest in the cooperative enterprise, and the land is converted into shares according to the market price, which not only protects the interests of the collective and the villagers, but also enables them to share the profits brought by industrial innovation; At the same time, it has opened up channels for capital and technology to go to the countryside, leaving a huge space for the development of the company.
It is worth mentioning that the difference between the cooperatives led by the party branch and the general farmer cooperatives is that in the general farmer cooperatives, capital plays a decisive role, and the large households in the village are combined with the strong and powerful, or the urban and rural capital is combined with each other to operate and carry out production and operation activities in accordance with the rules of the company law. The party branch leads the cooperatives to all the villagers, and the party organization plays a core leading role and has become the support of poor and vulnerable farmers. Without the party organization playing a core leadership role, it is difficult to run cooperatives well.
The model founded by Li Changping
Li Changping, a well-known expert on "agriculture, agriculture, and agriculture", founded the China Rural Construction Institute in 2011, and cooperated with local party and government departments in the form of a professional team to carry out collective economic joint-stock cooperatives led by party branches. This kind of cooperative has more than 300 pilot projects across the country, and has achieved remarkable results, becoming a model for local rural revitalization. Li Changping put forward the idea of "unification of the four powers" and "three-in-one" development of the village committee. "Unification of the four powers" means that rural property rights, financial rights, administrative powers, and governance rights are unified and exercised by village committees; The "trinity" refers to the integration of the three functions of village community economic development, community construction and community governance. The peasants are the masters of rural affairs, not the township governments. Li Changping believes that the collective economic joint-stock cooperative led by the party branch is a special legal entity, which leads the big ship of agricultural economy and the overall situation; If the party branch only leads the professional cooperatives and leads the boat of the agricultural economy, it will be impossible to achieve real rural autonomy. Villagers invest in collective economic cooperatives with contracted land, houses, and assets converted into shares, which are managed by the collective, and then subcontracted to professional teams and professionals to operate, and villagers share dividends according to their shares. There is a reserve price transfer fee for the contracted land to ensure that the basic rights and interests of farmers are not lost. Taking the pilot project of Inner Mongolia Dalat Banner Shulinzhao Cooperative as an example, the administrative village has set up a cooperative led by the party branch, and the cooperative has "four cooperatives": mutual fund cooperatives, land cooperatives, housing cooperatives, and consumer cooperatives, each of which operates and accounts separately. At the same time, associations of integrated farmers' cooperatives have been established at the town level.
Practice has proven that only the Communist Party is a party that serves the people completely and thoroughly, and only by relying on the party's leadership can the peasants in impoverished areas shake off poverty and move toward the road of common prosperity.
Organizing the peasants is the heirloom of the Communist Party. We must not throw away this heirloom when carrying out rural work, we must build a strong collective economy, implement the party's strong leadership over the "three rural" work, and only then can the rural revitalization work be done well.
National Top 100 Village Model
The top 100 villages in the country are the advanced representatives of the rural areas that have emerged since the reform and opening up, represent the development direction of China's socialist rural areas, and are the model for the rural areas of the country to learn from. For example, Liuzhuang, Nanjie Village, Zhoujiazhuang in Henan, Dai Village in Shandong, Jiajiazhuang in Shanxi, Tengtou Village in Zhejiang, Huaxi Village in Jiangsu and other villages. One of the common features of the top 100 villages is that the land is collectively managed. Nowadays, Xiaogang Village has also begun to transfer land in large quantities, establish cooperatives, and realize collective economic dividend income.
The government respects the villagers' right to self-government
In 1982, Article 111 of the newly amended Constitution stipulates that villagers' committees are grassroots mass autonomous organizations. In 1990, the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued the Circular on Carrying Out Demonstration Activities of Villagers' Autonomy in Rural Areas Across the Country, proposing that the core content of villagers' autonomy is the "four democracies", namely, democratic election, democratic decision-making, democratic management, and democratic supervision. The subsequent promulgation of the law on the content of village autonomy further strengthened the content of villagers' autonomy.
To implement villagers' autonomy and the building of rural democracy, it is necessary to uphold the party's overall leadership as a premise. In promoting rural revitalization, the leading bodies of county and township party organizations should focus on strengthening the guidance for the construction of grassroots party organizations, build a team of party members with mass prestige and organizational ability, and become a strong fighting fortress for implementing the party's decisions, leading grassroots governance, uniting and mobilizing the masses, and promoting reform and development.
To implement villagers' autonomy, we should also attach importance to strengthening rural social governance. Rely on the leading role of the party organization to create a clean and upright atmosphere, unity and mutual assistance, and a grassroots governance mechanism that acts impartially and fairly.
Under the correct guidance of the higher-level party organizations, the villagers should be allowed to enjoy the "four democracies", and the method of democratic voting should be adopted, so that the village committees can truly play the role of grassroots mass autonomous organizations, for example, the villagers themselves can decide which business model to choose, and respect the initiative of the masses.
If we continue to implement the policy of guaranteeing production to households, we should sum up and absorb the advanced experiences of various localities, such as the method of confirming the rights of contracted land and indefinite land, and the collective pooling of land and adopting a variety of business models, and so on.
Another example is that in the work of tackling tough problems in poverty alleviation, the dispatch of personnel from government organs to administrative villages to serve as village first secretaries and the selection and dispatch of college student village officials have played an important role, but this practice is not suitable for forming a long-term system, mainly because the first secretaries and college student village officials are first and foremost responsible for the units assigned to them, and whether they are willing to stay in the villages for a long time is also a problem. Rural affairs still rely on the local peasants to handle the affairs themselves, and cadres who have grown up in their own townships may be more suitable for rural work.
(The author is a researcher at the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Bureau of Zhuozi County, Inner Mongolia, and an expert in agricultural science and technology)