Since the reform and opening up, based on the decentralized operations of families and taking the unified management of farms as the dominant principle, a two-tiered management system with household-managed small farms nested in collectively managed big farms has been established on the basis of relations on land contract in most state-owned land reclamation farms.
In recent years, state-owned farms have persisted on the two-tiered management system. Based on actual developments of the agricultural productivity, they upgraded and improved the agricultural management system constantly and provided an institutional guarantee for the agricultural reclamation system to take the lead in realizing the agricultural modernization.
1. Intensification of family farms was raised Land contract and management by households is the basic form for managing the agricultural production of land reclamation and also the foundation for agricultural management in state-owned farms.
As of the end of 2012，household and individual contractors amounted to 1.906 8 million, accounting 84.4 percent of all contractors of land reclamation nationwide. Their total contracted area accounted for 91.9 percent of all land under agricultural management.
In the process of upgrading the agricultural management system, workers were given more sufficient and further ensured rights of land contract and management through measures including consistently respecting the principal position of households in the agricultural management, extension of the duration of land contract, normalization of contract and so on in all reclamation areas.
Meanwhile, in order to develop family farms into real subjects of production, investment, benefits and risks, the reform of property rights of farm machinery was promoted energetically; the family farms，decision-making power for production was enlarged; the transfer of land under the principles of conformity to law, voluntary consent and compensation was carried forward. Agricultural workers, enthusiasm and creativity was mobilized fully and the agricultural productivity of land reclamation was liberated and developed.
2. Organization of agricultural management was improved Based on ensuring family farms, autonomy in agricultural management, the unified management function of state-owned farms were strengthened through making full use of market-based means, such as unified management of national assets, unified formulation and implementation of the farming system, unified organization and implementation of agro-tech measures in all reclamation areas, unified supply of public agro-tech services, unified management of farm machinery operations, unified organization of socialized services of agriculture and so on, in all reclamation areas.
Without changing the principle of land management by household, tens of thousands of small-scale producers were incorporated into cooperative, industrialized, collectivized and socialized large-scale producers, in order to reduce the transaction costs in aspects like material procurement and product marketing and improve the comprehensive benefits of agricultural production and management of state-owned farms.
3. Land allocation was improved in state-owned farms In recent years, the practice of two kinds of field, according to which farm land was divided into "basic field" and "contracted field"，has been implemented in many reclamation areas. Basic field was distributed to every agricultural worker equally according to the scale of local village. Only fees benefiting farmers, like fee for social security, were collected.
The two-kind-field system ensured that agricultural workers benefited fully from the reform of taxes imposed on state-owned farms. It helped to carry forward the concentration of land to dab hands at fanning and raise the allocative efficiency of land resources.
4. New-type subjects of agricultural management were fostered and developed Measures like administrative instruction, stimulation by typical examples, policy drivers and so on were taken to develop various professional cooperative organizations, joint-stock organizations and incorporated farms.
As of the end of 2012, incorporated and joint-stock agricultural organizations amounted to 13 000. In Heilongjiang Land Reclamation, various professional cooperatives registered with industrial and commercial administrative departments amounted to 1 563, with 18 629 household members as total and contributions totaling 3.416 billion yuan.
In reclamation areas in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Ningxia and other provinces, superior agricultural resources were consolidated to establish specialized companies and leading enterprises engaged in processing agricultural products to promote industrialized operations energetically. Interests of specialized companies, cooperative management organizations and rural households were combined to improve the economies of scale of agricultural production in state-owned farms.
5. A new system for socialized services of agriculture was built In all reclamation areas, great efforts were made to build a system for socialized agricultural services with focuses on agro-tech popularization, services for farm machinery, supply and sales of goods used in agricultural production, animal and plant disease control, quality safety of agricultural products, and circulation of agricultural products. The system would provide comprehensive services for the agricultural production at pre-, on- and post-stages.
Problems that can't be solved, or can't be well solved, or can't be economically solved by a single family were settled. Contradictions between small-scale production and big market were resolved. In all reclamation areas, socialized services, including joint development by farm and county, display windows, scientific and technical services, and trans-area operation, were provided to accelerate the proliferation of advanced technologies, export of production services and connection of links in the industrial chain.
In 2012，state-owned farms provided a total of 1 million person-times of trains for farmers from surrounding rural areas, finished trans-area farm machinery operations, covering 3.962 million hectares, and supplied 950 million kilograms of fine breeds, 6.75 million tubes of froze semen and 0.32 million boars to boost development of agricultural production in surrounding areas.
