A Study On Chinese Agricultural Land System Reform

Rural economic system reform that originated from agricultural land system reform, has released tremendous energy for China’s agricultural development, especially for food growth. As the world’s most populous country, China feeds22percent of the world’s pop-ulation with7percent of global arable land, and successfully solves the problem of feeding1.3billion people, which is unique among all the countries in the world. The agricultural land model of household contract system has already become an undisputedly successful story in the history of the world’s agricultural land system reform.The accumulation of agricultural wealth not only made it possible for supporting the development of industrialization and urbanization, but also laid a solid foundation for the direct realization of agricultural modernization.This article explains the basic theories of agricultural modernization and Chinese agri-cultural land system. In combination of the experience in achieving agricultural moderniza-tion at home and abroad, and the basic national conditions of China’s agricultural develop-ment, this article sums up the basic meanings of the agricultural modernization with Chi-nese characteristics:take it as the goal of protecting the supply of agricultural products, increasing farmers’ income and promoting sustainable development; take it as the means of improving agricultural productivity, resource productivity and commodity rate; take it as the support of modern technology and equipments, on the basis of household contract system, and with the combined effort of market mechanism and government regulation, so as to build up the diversified industrial form and multi-functional industrial system with close relation of agriculture, industry and trade, and tight integration of production, pro-cessing and marketing.In associated with the study and analysis of Chinese history and foreign agricultural land system, through analysis of the theory of institutional change of agricultural land, this paper aims to explore the general rules; agricultural land system should be consistent with the level of development of productive forces; agricultural land system reform can be carried out through various forms; the focus of land reform should be shifted from the ownership of land to the land use system; the role of government which is the main decis-ive subject of agricultural land system, can not be replaced; agricultural land reform should ensure that agricultural producers have the right to operate independently; agricul-tural land reform should take full account of being bound by the conditions of land re-sources; agricultural land reform should give full attention to the reform and perfection of supporting system.This paper proposes series of ideas and makes theoretical analysis to the reform and improvement of household contract system. It makes it clear the purpose of agricultural land reform, and sums up six actual needs. In terms of the difficulties and timing of re-form, it analyzes the real situations of agricultural land reform; in terms of the manners of reform, it puts forward the deepening of inductivity with coerciveness; in terms of the models of reform, it answers how to accommodate diversity with pluralism; in terms ofthe measures of reform, it suggests the reflection of effectiveness with pragmaticali-ty; in terms of reducing the cost of reform, it points out that the path of reform should be conducted progressively to resolve risk, as well as the necessity of correctly coordinating several important relationships of reform. The article accurately establishes the four prin-ciples of agricultural land system reform:follow up and integratedly use the law of path dependency and institutional change; focus on the problems of stability and development, equity and efficiency in agricultural land reform; take the core of scientific efficiency of land resources; reduce the cost of reform, promote balanced development and avoid trade-off force. In terms of the design of the reform program, it unequivocally proposes the adher-ence to the basic framework of "household contract basis, unified and separate two-tier management system", which is the basic achievement in agricultural land system reform for the past decades of years, and must be adhered to. The program of reform should stick to the basis of market-oriented, fairness, democracy and people-based principles, so as to progress in the direction of "separation of three powers, two obligations, four combinations, vertical management, clear responsibility system, benefit from balanced development, partial co-ordination and in accordance with local conditions". The article also identifies the basic elements of agricultural land reform as the following:the alert line of agricultural land resource, designated use of agricultural land; state and farmers as the main subject in the structure of property rights, which means that the state is the subject of rural land ownership, and farmers get a permanent, full contractual right of agricultur-al land; the establishment of national vertical land management agencies to exercise the functions of agricultural land ownership, the strengthening of management system for ag-ricultural land from the aspects of legal, organizational and operational mechanism; the reform of the acquisition system for agricultural land, the transformation of the land rent theory into rent practice, the implementation of compensation for agricultural land use system; the establishment of withdrawal mechanism of contract right for agricultural land; the establishment of disputes relief mechanism for agricultural land; expanding the coverage of social security in rural areas, especially for the protection of landless peasants and farmers with small proportion of land; ensuring reasonable and legitimate movement of farmers to speed up the process of agricultural modernization, and balanced considera-tion for promoting the steady, healthy and orderly development of national industrialization and urbanization. The paper clearly points out the exact rights of agricul-tural land and divides it into three main rights and four sub-rights, a total of seven rights that include:ownership of agricultural land, contract rights, management and benefit rights, transfer rights, inheritance rights and withdraw rights. It also clarifies the obligations attached to agricultural land into two major obligations, which are contracted tax and out of contract obligations. It makes a more detailed analysis about the establishment of pro-tection system for agricultural land reform, the appropriate scale of land operation and cir-culation, and the international law of agricultural modernization, and proposes counter-measures with strong feasibility.