By Liu Shouying, China Economic Times, Li Qing, Research Department of Rural Economy of DRC, & Wang Ruimin Renmin University of China

Research Report No 172, 2015 (Total 4857)

Abstract:

With the swift non-agricultural process of rural population and labor force, the transfer of rural land has sped up significantly. In 2014, the total acreage of rural land transfer accounted for 30.32% of the household contracted land. Subcontracts and leases remain the major forms of land transfer. The percentage of transferred land used for growing food crops is stable but it varies in different areas. The rate of signed contracts on land transfer has improved. Meanwhile, the scale of land operated by farmers is increasing, and land operation entities have changed greatly. The entities of land transfer are still farmers but subcontractors have become diversified. Agricultural operation has changed from by farmers alone to by more specialized cooperatives and enterprises. As for land transfer and large-scale operation, problems exist such as unregulated transfer and transferred land for growing non-food crops. It is not the case that the larger the scale of land operation, the better it is. Under current conditions of China's agricultural production, the scale of agricultural operation should not be expanded excessively, which would hamper the increase of agricultural yields.