By Liu Shouying, DRC

2017-2-14

In the process of promoting the separation of farmers’ three rights (i.e. land ownership right, land contracting right and land management right), a proper treatment of farmers’ land rights is key to the separation of farmers’ three rights.

First, the collective ownership is the collective ownership of farmers. The reform of the household land contract responsibility system with remuneration linked up with farm output in China has realized the separation of collective ownership and farmers' land tenure right under the collective ownership. While ensuring that collective ownership remains stable, farmers’ land tenure right and their right to get proceeds from the transfer of land-use right are endowed to farmers. In order to ensure that farmers have the right to effectively exercise collective land ownership, the collective economic organizations need to guarantee that the farmers could enjoy the right to be informed about, to participate in and to oversee government management affairs through the enforcement of democratic supervision mechanism.

Second, land contracting right is the farmers’ property right endowed by law. For farmers, the obtainment of farmland contracting and management right is one of the major achievements of rural reform in China, and it indicates that the Party has conferred land-use right on farmers for the second times in the Party’s history. The collective land contracting right belongs to the family of farmers, and the contractors have the right to enjoy the revenue resulting from the contracted land. Thus, it is necessary to keep the present land contract relations stable on a long-term basis.

Third, land management right is derived from farmers’ land contracting right. The separation of land management right from the land contracting right is based on farmers’ land transfer right according to legal provisions, which makes the land right system become more complete, and enables the farmers to turn their land contracting and management right into land transfer right. The reform in rural areas focused on the separation of farmers’ three rights has been launched, which will have a profound impact on the process of modernization in rural China. In the implementation of the separation of farmers’ three rights, it is necessary to show more concern to farmers' land rights.