1998 Central Document No.1

After the reform of rural taxes and fees in 2003, land income increased obviously, and land once again became a beacon for farmers. The Land Contract Law, which stipulates that the contracted land will remain unchanged for 30 years, was formally implemented in this year, which doomed the rural land dispute in China to become a major event this year. Who should the land use right belong to? How is the land contracted? How to contract is reasonable? These problems and disputes at the operational level and the policy and law level have also appeared accordingly.

Chen Zhenchang, who has worked in towns and villages in Hubei for a long time, complained that the policy of "one package of rural land use rights will remain unchanged for 30 years" is not in line with rural reality. Especially when someone wants to take back the cultivated land cultivated by other villagers for several years on the pretext of owning the land use right, it is easy to trigger strong confrontation among farmers. At the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004, rural land disputes in Hubei Province became a very headache for rural grass-roots work.

Where does the controversy come from?

More than five years before the reform of taxes and fees, farmers' burden became heavier and heavier, while food prices became lower and lower, and farmers did not make money by farming, so a large area of land was abandoned, which made rural taxes and fees disappear. As a result, wasteland is not allowed in rural areas, and farmers have to farm their contracted land, even if they don't farm, they have to pay taxes. This is the rural situation described by Li Changping at the end of11990s. In order to subcontract abandoned land, rural areas auction these land to farmers who are willing to farm at a price lower than that of ordinary farmers' contracted land. However, some farmers actually give up their contracted land and subcontract the abandoned land, forming a vicious circle of "contracting-abandoning land". Before the reform of taxes and fees, land became a burden, and rural cadres had a headache for this vicious circle almost every day. Therefore, the land use right is more chaotic, and casually picking up land has become a major landscape in rural areas.

For those abandoned land that no one wants to farm, rural organizations have thought of many ways, except bidding and subcontracting, such as turning abandoned land into fish ponds, planting poplars or fruit trees and so on. The practice of some major grain producing areas in Hubei is more long-term: in 2002, we visited jingshan county, Hubei. In previous years, one of the most important tasks of rural cadres in jingshan county was to mobilize mountain farmers to emigrate to western Hubei and Sichuan. jingshan county will provide round-trip travel expenses for mountain farmers who visit and inspect. The rural areas in Jingshan have almost all the conditions that mountain farmers have prepared: houses that can be bought cheaply (more and more farmers go to cities to build houses and dispose of rural houses cheaply) and a large number of abandoned farmland. Such a good large area of arable land is abandoned, which really makes it hard for mountain farmers to imagine and heartache. Needless to say, the visiting farmers soon packed their bags and emigrated with their families. These immigrants also transferred their hukou to the village, and they quickly adapted to local life, and some even became village cadres. The abandoned land was planted, and the hard work of the rural cadres was rewarded: they finally disposed of the abandoned land and settled the taxes and fees.

However, the reform of taxes and fees and the change of rural situation soon made rural cadres more busy: those farmers who failed to find jobs in cities but nominally owned land use rights were willing to return to their villages and said that they must take back their contracted land. They will no longer allow farmers to farm or compete for their contracted land. Farmers who are farming show the contract signed with the village Committee to prove that the land has been subcontracted to them by the village Committee. Farmers who have the right to use land show the policy document of "30 years unchanged" for the second round of land contracting stipulated by the central government, and criticize the subcontracting contract countersigned by the village Committee as illegal. Therefore, both sides of the contradiction have found rural cadres, who can't solve such complicated and profound contradictions and can only complain about the contracting policy.

Such a large-scale and serious land dispute must be resolved. There is no way to solve the problems in rural areas. Mayor Chen, who complained to me, asked me if I could come up with any clever solutions. I'm speechless. Mayor Chen thinks that if the central government cancels the second round of "land contracting will remain unchanged for 30 years", wouldn't those farmers who take this opportunity to make trouble have nothing to say? I told Mayor Chen that it is impossible for the central authorities to change their policies or the land contract law just passed in 2003. Mayor Chen spread out his hands: What can I do?

It's June 2004. The Hubei provincial government suddenly issued a policy: the second round of land contracting in Hubei province has not yet been carried out, and the province will start the second round of land contracting before the end of this year. The statement in this policy document is a bit strange, because the second round of land contracting in Hubei Province was indeed carried out around 1998, but most parts of the province were a mere formality at that time. However, this policy can solve the common land disputes in the province at present: farmers' right to enjoy land in the village is readjusted according to the application, which is called the second round of contracting. The new so-called second-round contracting can not only meet the requirements of farmers who apply for land rights, but also meet the requirements of newly moved farmers, so that the land arrangement conforms to the status quo and does not violate the policy, and the existing serious land disputes can also be compromised.

This is really a good way, a clever way. This method will certainly make Mayor Chen happy and satisfied.

Because of the national policy of benefiting the people, rural land disputes have risen sharply, which is probably unexpected by policy makers. However, we should also realize that land disputes in such areas are not aimed at the state, but internal disputes in rural areas. Some people confuse the land disputes of farmers caused by the national policy of benefiting farmers with those caused by national urbanization and land acquisition of public projects. In fact, they confuse these two completely different land disputes, and some media even judge that the focus of rural struggle has changed from tax period to land period, which is really a misjudgment of the situation.

In the current rural land disputes and the above-mentioned things, I have two feelings: First, the countryside cannot be separated from the dynamic forces of rural cadres. Without such power, rural contradictions may directly rise to counties, cities and even the central government; Secondly, it is commendable that a provincial government can put forward such flexible solutions to practical problems, which shows that if a local government grasps a large number of facts realistically, it will have practical wisdom to deal with facts and make the best choice from various possible solutions. (Text/Huazhong University of Science and Technology China