LAND reform has characterised rural China since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.
Since then, there have been three major farmland reforms in China.
However, given China’s vast size and diversity in natural endowment and economic development, bringing about reforms was a frustrating and sensitive task.
First, there was the radical farmland revolution of the early 1950s when China achieved the dream of Chinese farmers by expropriating land from traditional landlords and distributing it to landless peasants; thus, creating a sector of private smallholders.
China, as other socialist countries, shaped its farmland policy from the well-known Soviet Union’s model and that of the independent States of the former Soviet Union as well as Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where land reforms were pursued, characterised by collective ownership and unified collective operation.
In China, land reform was concentrated on ‘land use rights’ reform, while in the former Soviet Union and CEE countries, farmland privatisation was commonly seen as the crucial component in economic transition.
To reach its target, China carried out a second land reform in the mid-1950s.
A campaign of ‘collectivisation’ was established by compelling individual farmers to join ‘collectives’, in Zimbabwe known as ‘co-ops’, which developed into the People’s Commune with centrally controlled property rights and egalitarian principle of distribution.
In time, farmers’ operational freedom and enthusiasm for production was destroyed, which resulted in the poor performance of the commune system
At the end of the 1970s, breaking from the Soviet doctrine, China launched an economic reform, pioneered by rural reform. China introduced a family-based contract system called Household Responsibility System (HRS).
Recognised as the third land revolution in China, the HRS proved to be a great success and was the nationwide statutory pattern of agricultural land tenure since.
Under the new system, incentives for production was generated by giving farmers freedom of land use rights and decision-making; closely linking rewards with their performance.
As a result, China’s agriculture was dramatically revived.
In the first half of the 1980s, after 30 years of stagnation, growth in agricultural output was accelerated to a rate several times the previous long-term average.
Between 1978 and 1984, output of the three main crops, namely grain, cotton and oil-bearing crops, increased from 2,4 percent, 1,0 percent and 0,8 percent per annum from 1952 to 1978, to annual rates of 4,8 percent, 7,7 percent and 13,8 percent, respectively.
The production of grain, the most important farming product of the country, reached a peak of 407 million tonnes in 1984, which represented a net increase of more than 100 million tonnes, within only six years; thereby solving China’s centuries-old fundamental problem of feeding its massive population.
However, in 1985 a big drop in grain output was witnessed that followed by stagnation until the 1990s.
The HRS had exhausted its benefits.
Although the HRS initially proved a great success, as an institutional innovation it could not address everything, and after several years of practice, a number of limitations and weaknesses inherent in the system were exposed.
Given the vast population and limited land, the amount of land that could be distributed to each household was minimal, resulting in fragmented and independently farmed units. Furthermore, large areas of cultivated land were wasted in the form of paths and boundaries separating each households’ property (ndima).
The principle of land distribution in China was derived directly from collective ownership; as in Zimbabwe, farmland in a village was owned by all of its members collectively.
As a result, every member had equal claim on land property rights, with the norm for distributing land based on the size of the peasant family.
A survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture indicated that in 1986, among 7 983 sample villages from 29 provinces, the average area cultivated per household was 0,466 hectares fragmented into 5,85 plots; each plot on average 0,08 ha.
This fragmented structure of family farming remained mostly unchanged and halted the possibilities of using relatively advanced mechanical equipment and agricultural infrastructures.
During the Commune era, collectives were prohibited from selling the land they owned (except to the state) or from buying land from other owners.
Furthermore, a farmer’s land use rights, such as production decisions, were weakened by the rigid state procurement system. Farm products could only be sold to state commercial institutions at administratively low prices; thus, farmers could not benefit from their production.
Under the HRS, farmers still failed to have complete rights on land.
They lacked the right to transfer their contract land and their rights to use and benefit from the land were further weakened by administrative interference and continued state procurement.
As a result of these infringements of property rights, the state was the real landowner – the biggest landlord in rural China.
In the 1980s, when the household responsibility system began to exhibit problems, China began to pursue new measures to improve its agrarian institutions under a call for a second stage of rural reform.
Whilst adhering to the principle of collective ownership of farmland and reforming land use rights, the Chinese Government delivered a number of policies and measures including:
l Allowing households to exchange their labour with others and to employ limited amounts of labour for farm work in 1983 and,
l In 1984, they provided better incentives for soil conservation and investment. Leaseholds were extended to 15 years and then to 30 years in 1995.
In the late 1980s, rural households engaged in non-farm business were allowed to sub-lease their land to other villagers in order to prevent land from being left idle.
Meanwhile, the central Government also encouraged more flexible measures to be carried out at the local level.
The experimental land reform models initiated in selected locations of various provinces in the mid to late 1980s, enabled China to actively pursue appropriate models to guide further land reforms.
During the process, different and even divergent ideas and suggestions have emerged with debates between contrasting viewpoints, not only on the evolution of the theories themselves, but also on reforms in practice.
Dr Michelina Rudo Andreucci is a Zimbabwean-Italian researcher, industrial design consultant lecturer and specialist hospitality interior decorator. She is a published author in her field. For views and comments, email: linamanucci@gmail.com