Regarding state ownership, land for business is converted to private ownership. The " Constitution of the People's Republic of China " promulgated in September 1954 stipulates: " The State shall protect the land ownership rights of farmers and the ownership rights of other means of production according to the law ", recognizing a series of rights to freely conduct business, buy, sell, lease, pledge, and mortgage land. However, during the period from 1955 to 1958, due to the promotion of the socialist collective transformation movement of agriculture, the land ownership rights of Chinese farmers and the ownership rights of other means of production were quickly taken away. By 1962, after the "Rural People's Commune Work Regulations " were officially promulgated, it was stipulated that individual farmers no longer had the right to own land, and even the land left by their ancestors was also confiscated and returned to the collective ownership of rural areas.
In the late 70s and early 80s of the last century, 18 farming households in Xiaogang Village, Liyuan Township secretly signed a “large land contract”, opening the way for the implementation of the contract system that would be implemented throughout the country later on. In 1978, the 3rd Central Conference of the 11th Communist Party of China made a historic decision to carry out reform and opening up. In 1982, the Party Central Committee approved the “ Minutes of the National Rural Work Conference ”. The Minutes revealed: Currently, over 90% of rural production teams have established a production responsibility system with different forms such as output contract to households, work contract to households, etc., all of which are “ the production responsibility system of the socialist collective economy ”; At the same time, it is clearly stated that the above-mentioned forms of contracting “ are not synonymous with the small-scale private individual economy before collectivization, but are an integral part of the socialist agricultural economy ” [18,34]. Thus, the system of contracting products to households replaced the people's communes, not only developing the relationship between farmers and land, but also forming the first ideological liberation at that time, carrying out creative research for the construction and perfection of the market economic system and the basic economic system in the early stages of China. In 1984, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China introduced
The land lease term was usually over 15 years, and the household-based contract farming system was established as the most basic production and business system in rural China at that time.
From 1982 to 1986, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China issued five consecutive documents No. 1 on rural work, with the basic direction being to abolish the existing people's commune system, establish a basic business system in rural areas, and focus on liberating the long-repressed social productive forces in rural areas. "Document No. 1 " in 1982 resolved the issue of the principle of " contracting to households" , " commune" or "private" families, in which it was determined that the nature of "contracting" was not privatization . " Document No. 1 " in 1983 determined that the contract system to households was "the main task of rural work in the immediate period" . " Document No. 1 " in 1984 determined that " the 15-year land contract system would not be changed ". “ Document No. 1 ” in 1985 abolished the unified purchasing and consumption regime for agricultural products that had existed for 30 years before the famine, and shifted to a market-regulated mechanism. In terms of institutions, it was institutionally guaranteed that the land use rights regime in rural areas would develop deeply. “ Pay enough to the state, keep enough for the collective, and the rest would be yours ”, the responsibility system for contracting to households initially guaranteed the land business rights and ownership rights of farmers’ surplus agricultural products.
The development of rural reform has brought about great changes in China's rural areas. According to the data, from 1978 to 1984, China's average annual agricultural production growth rate maintained a rate of 7.7%. Comparing 1984 and 1978, the total value of agricultural production at constant prices increased by 42.23% [10, 281], of which more than half came from the increase in production rate brought about by the household contract system. From 1980 to 1985, the average annual income growth rate of farmers exceeded 10%, a much higher rate than the previous period. The household contract system not only helped China's agriculture enter a "golden age", but also in a very short period of time.
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solved the problem of food and shelter for more than 1 billion people. The number of poor farmers decreased from 250 million to 130 million, the poverty rate decreased from 30.7% to 15.1% [74], becoming a miracle in the history of poverty reduction of mankind. The key reason for such a great change in the countryside is that the family-based contract system has adapted to the characteristics and laws of agricultural production, carried out the transformation of the production system, promoted the enthusiasm of farmers for production, maximally liberated the rural productive forces that had been suppressed for a long time, strengthened the driving force of production and business activities, and promoted the rapid growth of farmers' income.
The contract system to households promotes increased income for Chinese farmers, mainly reflected in the following aspects:
Firstly, it has liberated the productive forces that had been constrained by the previous people's commune system for many years, rapidly increased agricultural labor productivity, accelerated the development of China's agriculture, and the scope of farmers' production activities has also been broader than in any previous period. In addition, the household contract system has also restored and reaffirmed the production autonomy and self-determination of farmers - those who directly engage in production labor and are the owners of the collective economy. This has helped farmers to be able to independently arrange and operate production, and to make production and business policy decisions based on specific situations. Autonomy has not only strongly promoted farmers' initiative and increased labor productivity, but also helped them freely control their labor and labor time, trying to use the labor and labor time that had been previously suppressed and neglected in areas where new benefits could be obtained. The direct result of the above situation is that agriculture and other rural economic sectors have developed strongly, helping the vast majority of Chinese farmers escape from hardship, and many have had a prosperous life. Moreover, the ratio
The surplus of the fruits of labor is constantly increasing, farmers have food and property, thereby farmers' income also increases, the life of rural residents is also significantly improved.
Second , promote the activeness of farmers in labor, enhance their sense of responsibility in labor, promote the leapfrog development of agricultural production. After the cooperative period, due to the implementation of egalitarianism and division of labor, farmers' production efforts were completely determined by supervision. However, agricultural production is different from industrial production, it has the characteristics of long production cycles and is difficult to supervise, so supervision is determined by the finished products of production supervision. The system of product contracting to households has solved the problem of limiting lazy people, helping to maximize farmers' activeness in production, promoting the leapfrog development of agricultural production. Thereby promoting the rapid and stable growth of farmers' income during this period.
Third, helping farmers break free from the shackles that had prevented them from moving freely for many years has liberated many farmers from the bondage of land, thus giving rise to a large-scale process of Chinese farmers leaving their land and villages. Since the implementation of the piecework system, on the one hand, the system of compulsory control over farmers similar to that of the previous people's communes has collapsed; on the other hand, because the previously suppressed labor enthusiasm of farmers has now been brought into play, the large surplus labor force accumulated in China's rural and agricultural areas has burst out, and since the mid-1980s, a large number of them have moved from agriculture to other industries, from rural to urban areas. According to estimates, since the implementation of the piecework system, China has had more than 100 million farmers leave their land and move to other industries, and tens of millions of people have flocked to cities. It is this process
In the process of de-agriculturalization, farmers going to the city to find work is also a factor that promotes the increase of farmers' income.
Fourth, promoting some regions and some people to become rich first through labor, demonstrating the superiority of socialism. Poverty is not socialism, taking the path of socialization means achieving common prosperity. But common prosperity is absolutely not egalitarianism. The system of product contracting to households has broken the “big rice pot” of egalitarianism, some regions can rely on geographical location and resource advantages to develop first, then the regions that get rich first will pull the whole society step by step to become rich together. This is a correct policy of the Party and the State in the conditions of China at that time, which has encouraged a part of the pioneers to get rich, creating great achievements for Chinese agriculture in general and increasing farmers’ income in particular in the 30 years of reform and opening up.
2.2. Stabilize land contract relations, protect farmers' rights to use contracted land
Stabilizing land lease relationships and protecting farmers' land use rights is protecting farmers' most fundamental interests.
The household contract system in agriculture implemented in the early 80s of the last century solved the autonomy of production and business of hundreds of millions of Chinese farmers, strongly encouraged and promoted the active production of the majority of farmers, but it was still not the most perfect agricultural system that could make agriculture develop in the long term and sustainably. It is seen that the contract system still has many limitations such as:
First, the average distribution of land according to population or labor force has limited the reasonable mobility of land use rights, hindering the transfer of land into the hands of capable farmers.
fields, family farms or cooperative farms, small and scattered land, limiting agricultural business and production at a reasonable scale, low production efficiency;
Second, the subjects of land ownership and use rights are not clear, farmers' land ownership rights are not respected, causing farmers' interests to be violated, land use efficiency is not high, land is not protected, and the phenomenon of land being used and abandoned arbitrarily occurs more and more;
Third, because the ownership and land use rights are separated, farmers - business entities - lack the motivation to invest in land, while rural collectives - land owners - lack the commitment to investment responsibility. Therefore, after fully promoting its positive effects in liberating rural production, the product contract system could not help farmers' income continue to increase. Starting from 1985, the growth rate of farmers' income slowed down, falling from 11.8% in 1985 to 5.3% in 1987 and 1.8% in 1990, and even negative growth appeared in 1989 [65].
In essence, the problem of farmers' income is an employment problem. The core of the farmers' problem is the low income of farmers, which in turn causes insufficient consumption, affecting the entire national economy. The limitations of the contract system have prevented the transfer and sale of land property rights, hindered the urbanization process, and are not beneficial for rural areas to conduct large-scale land business. If the rural land policy is not changed, forcing farmers nationwide to do long-term business on limited arable land resources will inevitably cause a gradual decrease in land wages in the model of over-concentrated farming and labor, reducing productivity, and even causing no growth or negative growth. Because farmers' land assets cannot be privately owned,
Industrialization, farmers cannot mortgage their leased land, making it difficult for farmers to borrow capital to develop production.
To perfect and overcome some limitations of the land contract system, on March 1, 2003, the " Law on Rural Land Contracting " began to be implemented with an emphasis on stabilizing and perfecting the two-tier business institution combining unity and separation, taking the contract system to households as the basis, giving farmers the right to use contracted land in a long-term and guaranteed manner, while also verifying the implementation of the transfer of contracted land business rights, regulating the rights and methods of this transfer such as inheritance, benefiting, becoming shareholders, transferring, leasing, and assigning [67]... Some Chinese scientists evaluated the "Law on Contracting
This "rural land" is considered the third innovation in the reform of the system.
land reform in China will bring about great changes for farmers.
A study has shown that among the resource factors contributing to farmers' income such as labor (including the number of workers and their qualities), commercial land, and fixed assets of a productive nature, the number of agricultural workers contributes the least to farmers' income, while leased land contributes the most to farmers' income. According to calculations, if the scale of leased land increases by 1%, the net income of family business can increase by 1.5%; the contribution of fixed assets of a productive nature to farmers' income is also relatively large, if fixed assets increase by 1%, the net income of family business can increase by 1.2% [40,86].
Therefore, promoting land circulation in rural areas and expanding the scale of family land business of farmers is extremely important.
1 The first innovation in China's land reform was the reform after 1950, which abolished the feudal land ownership system; the second innovation was the implementation of the product contracting system to households in 1979, giving farmers the right to use and operate land; the third innovation was the reasonable transfer of land use rights in rural areas.
deepening the reform of rural financial institutions, improving the investment environment for farmers, solving the problem of difficult loans for farmers, and increasing investment in agriculture are the key points for China to build a long-term effective mechanism for increasing farmers' income.
Most recently, the 3rd Plenum of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (October 2008) passed the “ Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Important Issues for Promoting Rural Development Reform ”, which officially stipulated that farmers could legally convert their land use rights into leasehold land in the following forms: conversion of leasehold land rights, leasing, exchange, transfer, joint-stock cooperation, etc. In practice, this is a further improvement of land use rights, ensuring farmers’ rights such as ownership, use and profit from land use rights. The Resolution also stated that it is necessary to build a market for converting land use rights in rural areas, allowing farmers to develop agricultural production on an appropriate scale. According to the assessment of Trieu Ngoc Dien - researcher of the Center for Rural Economic Research, Ministry of Agriculture of China, allowing farmers to legally convert the right to operate contracted land is an important breakthrough in the existing land management system on the basis of stabilizing the land contract system to rural households. In the long term, it will effectively promote the development of the rural economy, promote Chinese agriculture to increase output and increase farmers' income [25].
This resolution has two meanings: First , in terms of the regime, since entering the 21st century, land circulation activities have been accelerated, but due to the lack of policy support, this conversion is often unsuccessful. The Resolution of the 3rd Central Conference of the 17th Communist Party of China has created policy support and has played a corresponding role.