By Ye Xingqing, Research Department of Rural Economy, DRC

Research Report, No.63, 2018 (Total 5338) 2018-4-9

Abstract: The option of what kind of rural operation mechanism could effectively unleash the rural development potential hinges on the major structural changes of land operation relating to farmers’ employment and income increase. Land functions in terms of employment and income increase are phasing out, and its social security functions are gradually replaced by the government-led rural social security system. Now farmers can earn a living without depending on the land, which provides enough leeway for innovating the rural operation mechanism. Increased outsourcing outlets have weakened rural households’ production and operation functions, while the joint stock cooperative system of land and development of agricultural enterprises have directly replaced households’ work as operation entities. This fact needs to be taken into full account in innovating rural operation mechanism. The intergenerational difference is becoming widened in rural areas, with the “first generation of farmers” and the “second generation of farmers” evidently differed in their employment choice, dependence on land, attachment to villages, and adaptability to the city and the outside world, which not only influences the transformation of China’s urban-rural structure, but also raises the issue on who will till the land and how rural rejuvenation could fare.

Key words: agricultural operation types, rural land functions, intergenerational difference