Original title: the historical context and future trend of rural reform
[Editor's Note] China's reform and opening up started in the countryside. Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China's agricultural production, rural landscape and farmers' life have undergone tremendous changes, and rural reform has made great achievements. The overall deepening of rural reform has provided inexhaustible strong impetus for the development of agriculture and rural areas. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, combing the historical context of rural reform and looking forward to the trend of rural reform with the new progress of reform practice are of great significance for comprehensively deepening rural reform and promoting agricultural and rural modernization in the new era.
In the 40 years of reform process in China, rural reform has always been eye-catching. On the one hand, it is because China's reform started from the countryside, and the initial results of rural reform have strengthened the confidence and determination of the whole society to promote reform; On the other hand, it is also because rural areas play an important role in China's economic and social development. If we do a good job in rural reform, it will help promote reform in other fields. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, it is necessary to comb the historical context of rural reform and look forward to the future trend of rural reform in combination with the new progress of reform practice.
Historical changes have taken place in rural economy and society
Since the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, China's rural reform has gone through a glorious process. The Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Issues of Accelerating Agricultural Development has established the important guiding ideology of rural reform, that is, to fully care about the material interests of farmers economically and effectively guarantee their democratic rights politically. Over the past 40 years, along this guiding ideology, rural reform has made great strides, and the rural economy and society have undergone historic changes.
First, the relationship between farmers and land has undergone historic changes. Since the reform and opening up, the central government's reform arrangements on the rural land system have always followed the objective law that production relations adapt to productivity, and always adhered to respecting farmers' wishes and safeguarding their rights. The relationship between farmers and land has undergone historic changes. At the beginning of the reform, some places, represented by Xiaogang Village, took the lead in implementing the big contracting reform, that is, the household contract responsibility system reform. Farmers got the autonomy of production and management, handed over to the country, left enough collective, and the rest was all their own. Since the mid-1980s, with the development of township enterprises, farmers began to divide their work and land contractual management rights began to flow. The Central Document No. 1 of 1984 stipulates that the land contract period should generally be more than 15 years. According to the No. 11 Document of the Central Committee in 1993, the original farmland contract period will be extended for another 30 years. The Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning the Promotion of Rural Reform and Development proposed that farmers should be given more sufficient and guaranteed land contract management rights, and the existing land contract relationship should remain stable and unchanged for a long time. The Rural Land Contract Law and the Property Law have further made detailed arrangements for this. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that the land contract relationship should be kept stable and unchanged for a long time, and the second round of land contract should be extended for another 30 years after its expiration.
After 40 years of evolution, the relationship between farmers and land has undergone tremendous changes. For the land that has not been transferred, the "separation of the two rights" of collective land ownership and farmers' contractual management rights has been realized, and the power of farmers' contractual management rights has been expanding; For the land that has been transferred, the land management right is separated from the contractual management right, and the "three rights separation" of the ownership contractual management right appears. The "separation of two rights" has fully mobilized the enthusiasm of hundreds of millions of farmers for production. The "separation of three rights" has adhered to the collective ownership of land, stabilized the farmers' contracting rights, and revitalized the land management rights. It has laid the institutional foundation for guiding the orderly transfer of land management rights, developing the appropriate scale operation of agriculture, and promoting the development of modern agriculture, as well as large-scale transfer and employment of agricultural surplus labor The citizenization of farmers in cities provides the possibility.
Second, the relationship between farmers and the village community has undergone historic changes. After the implementation of the household contract responsibility system, farmers have become independent agricultural production and management subjects, and their status and role in rural economic and social affairs have been greatly improved. The system of political and social integration has not met the needs of the times. In 1983, the Notice on the Separation of Government and Community and the Establishment of Township Government was issued. The focus of reform is to implement a new rural governance system. Over the years, villagers' autonomy has been constantly improved. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to improve the rural governance system combining autonomy, rule of law and rule of virtue, which pointed out the direction and path for better rural governance in the next step. Over the past 40 years, through this series of reforms, the relationship between farmers and the village community has undergone historic changes.
Third, the relationship between industry and agriculture and urban and rural areas has undergone historic changes. Since the reform and opening up, a series of turning and milestone changes have taken place in the relationship between industry, agriculture and urban and rural areas in the past 40 years, from rural support to "promoting agriculture with industry and driving rural areas with cities" to urban and rural integrated development. In terms of agricultural industrial policies, since the reform and opening up, the state has successively implemented reforms such as increasing the price of unified purchase, reducing the variety of unified purchase, and comprehensively marketization. The exchange relationship of industrial and agricultural products has developed in a direction conducive to agriculture. The agricultural fiscal and tax policies have also undergone a turning point, with the abolition of agricultural taxes and the implementation of agricultural subsidies. In addition, the state has implemented a series of social security systems in rural areas to promote the allocation of resource elements to rural areas. The sunshine of public finance shines more widely in rural areas, and the rain and dew of public finance nourish farmers more.
Deepening rural reform should adhere to the problem orientation
At present, China's agricultural and rural development has entered a new stage of comprehensive deepening. The implementation of the rural revitalization strategy is a major strategy for China to move towards the goal of becoming a modern and powerful country. To realize the goal of rural revitalization of strong agriculture, beautiful countryside and rich farmers, we must adhere to the problem orientation and comprehensively deepen rural reform with the times.
First, the main line of deepening rural reform under the new situation is still to deal with the relationship between farmers and land. With the further development of industrialization and urbanization, a large number of agricultural labor force has turned to non-agricultural industries, and farmers are constantly differentiated, which puts forward new requirements for further handling the relationship between farmers and land. Under the new situation, we should promote the reform of farmland system, such as farmland, forest land and grassland, in accordance with the idea of "separation of ownership, contracting right and management right", and clarify the existence form and specific power of collective land ownership; Reasonably empower the contracting right, explore the realization forms of contracting right such as "ensuring the right to share, ensuring the right to profit and not ensuring the right to land" where conditions permit, and explore the market-oriented exit mechanism of contracting right; Clarify the right attribute and specific functions of the third party management right as soon as possible, and provide institutional guarantee for the development of new business entities. The main way to deal with the relationship between farmers and collective profit-making construction land is to incorporate the income generated from these lands into the collective income, and guarantee the democratic management right and income distribution right of collective members. To deal with the relationship between farmers and homestead, we should gradually expand the power of the usufruct of homestead acquired by farmers in accordance with the law. We can consider taking the "integration of housing and land" as the basis of reform, and the "building first, then land, and land moving with the house" as the empowerment logic to explore effective ways of mortgage, guarantee, and transfer of farmers' housing property rights.
Second, accelerate the construction of a new agricultural support and protection system in line with China's development stage and WTO rules. In recent years, China has actively promoted reforms such as increasing the flexibility of the minimum purchase price policy for rice and wheat, and implementing price or income insurance for some agricultural products, and achieved some results. However, we still need to clearly see that in the future, the aging of China's agricultural labor force and the concurrent employment of farmers will further intensify, and the cost and price inversion of agricultural products between China and its major agricultural trade counterparts will also further expand. We should carry out a systematic reform of the agricultural support and protection system on the basis of analyzing and judging the future development trend. First, substantially reduce market price support and substantially increase general service support, especially increase investment in farmland consolidation, water conservancy facilities, R&D promotion, farmer training, etc. The second is to improve the relevant subsidy system guided by green ecology, guide farmers to protect farmland fertility, reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and realize the resource utilization of livestock manure and crop straw. Third, it is suggested to reform the price formation mechanism and the collection and storage system of important agricultural products according to the idea of "dividing the price according to the capacity, setting the market price, separating the price from the subsidy, and following the history of subsidy". It can be considered to govern the output and production capacity according to different principles, determine the producer price by the market supply and demand relationship, peel off the financial subsidies implied in the market supporting price, and subsidize according to the historical output or area, so as to realize the decoupling of subsidies and current production.
Third, improve the rural governance system according to the idea of combining autonomy, rule of law and rule of virtue. At present and in the future, China's rural governance is facing profound changes in subject and object. Under the new situation, we must adhere to the principle of autonomy as the foundation, the rule of law as the foundation, and the rule of virtue as the first, and constantly improve the rural governance system that combines autonomy, the rule of law, and the rule of virtue to ensure that the rural society is full of vitality, harmony, and order. In terms of autonomy, we should strengthen the construction of rural mass autonomous organizations, improve democratic decision-making procedures, continue to carry out the pilot work of villagers' autonomy with villagers' groups or natural villages as the basic unit, and promote the downward shift of governance focus and the shortening of governance radius. In terms of the rule of law, we should strengthen the authority of the law in safeguarding farmers' rights and interests, regulating market operation, agricultural support and protection, ecological environment governance, resolving rural social conflicts, and guide farmers and village cadres to respect the law, abide by the law and use it. In the aspect of rule of virtue, we should deeply explore the moral norms contained in the rural acquaintance society, innovate in accordance with the requirements of the times, strengthen the role of moral education, guide farmers to improve and reduce the uncertainty of behavior. It should be noted that autonomy, rule of law and rule of virtue have their own functions and scope of application, and the boundaries of the three are dynamic. At present and for a period to come, we need to constantly improve and innovate the dynamic villagers' autonomy mechanism led by the village party organization, strengthen the legal authority, nourish the rule of law by virtue, cultivate autonomy, promote the organic combination of autonomy, rule of law and rule of virtue, and form a standardized, orderly and dynamic rural governance mechanism. (The author is the director and researcher of the Rural Economic Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council)