1. Policy background and main content The circulation of rural land management rights and moderate scale management play an important role in agricultural and rural development, and is a significant task of deepening rural reform. In the process of industrialization and urbanization, rural labor has gradually transferred, which results in the circulation of rural lands, the expand of rural land management scale, and the use of advanced agricultural technologies, which contributes to the development of modern agriculture. These are worldwide phenomena in agricultural development. In recent years, local governments have explored based on their local conditions, and have gained some achievements and experiences. The central government has attached great importance to these issues. In 2014, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council released a document on comprehensively deepening rural reform and speeding up agricultural modernization. The document pointed out the need to improve rural land contract policy, develop various forms of scale management, and support new-type agricultural business entities. In February, the MoA issued a document on promoting family farms, which proposed measures for work guidance, land circulation, agricultural support policies, social service and labor support. In November, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council released a document on guiding the orderly circulation of rural land management rights and development moderate scale management. The document explicitly stated that rural land circulation and moderate scale management are essential to developing modern agriculture; they are conducive to optimizing the distribution of rural land resources, enhancing productivity, ensuring food security and the availability of main agro products, promoting agricultural technologies and improving efficiency, and increasing farmers, income. Based on China's large population and varied regional rural conditions, several measures were taken:
(1) Under the guidance of "the division of three rights," rural land system and agricultural management system was innovated. On the premise of collective land ownership, efforts were made to realize the division of ownership, contracting right and management right, guide the circulation of land management rights, cultivate new types of agricultural business entities, and develop various forms of agricultural moderate scale management. A pathway fit for China's agricultural modernization conditions was developed. Support policies were enhanced, and demonstration areas were built. The development of agricultural moderate scale management was based on the scale of rural labor transfer, agricultural technology conditions, and agricultural social service conditions.
(2) The orderly circulation of rural land management rights was regulated. Efforts were made to encourage farmers circulate contracting lands in ways of subcontract, renting, exchange, transfer and share holding, and encourage farmers to voluntarily exchange and merge their lands to address fragmental land issues. The circulation of lands was strictly regulated. Without a written entrustment from farmers, rural organizations have no rights to make decisions on circulating farmers' lands. It was strictly prohibited that the circulation of lands was promoted by given tasks, set targets or circulation area and proportion included in performance appraisal, etc. Governments enhanced circulation management and service, improved market regulation and developed the land circulation market. The scale of lands was set appropriately to prevent blindly pursuing large-scale management. Moderate concentration of land resources was guided, and service and cooperation were expanded to improve large-scale management.
(3) The cultivation of new-type agricultural business entities was accelerated. While continuing to support normal farm households, ministries placed emphasis on the cultivation of family farms, with family members being the main labors, and main income from professional and intensive agriculture, making them the leader of moderate scale management and modern agriculture. The support for family farms, professional large farm households, farmer cooperative organizations, leading companies, agriculture socialization service organizations and other new types of agricultural business entities was enhanced. The supervision of corporations which rent contracting lands from farmers was reinforced. Local governments should set time and area limits for corporations to rent contracting lands, improve the review and approval process, enhance risk insurance fund mechanism, and carry out regular inspection of the corporations， management ability, their use of contracting lands and their risk-prevention ability.
(4) Large-scale grain production was supported. Via adding new subsidies for large-scale grain production business entities, and preferentially subsidize their purchase of agricultural machinery, ministries established pilots for production subsidy, target price insurance and marketing loans, covering as many large-scale business entities as possible, in order to support large-scale grain production; industrial plans and policies were made to guide business entities in major grain producing areas; land circulation prices were regulated so as to reduce production costs and stabilize the area of grain production. Measures such as stopping subsidies were taken in order to prevent arable land from being abandoned.
2. Policy implementation and impact evaluation
(1)Several approaches were taken to guide and support the healthy development of family farms.
The first approach was to publicize the policy through news outlets to attract attention, and to create a beneficial environment for the development of family farms.
The second approach was to train family farm managers. The MoA included family farm managers into training plans for new-type professional farmers, rural talented personnel and "Sunshine Project." In 2014, 20 periods of training were conducted, which trained about 1,600 family farm managers.
The third approach was to introduce support policies. Some 20 provinces, autonomous regions, or municipalities nationwide released opinions specially on supporting family farms, and 15 provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities released management regulations on provincial demonstration family farms.
(2) Land circulation was generally stable and orderly. The trend of land circulation was to have various business entities and circulation forms. Normal farm households are still the major entities, but the proportion of new-type business entities, such as family farms, farmer cooperative organizations and leading companies, has been increasing; the subcontract between cooperative organization members is the main circulation form, but the proportion of new circulation forms, such as renting and share holding, has been increasing. The management and service of land circulation have been continuously enhanced. The proportion of contracting land has been stably increasing. According to the MoA, 66.7 percent of farmlands were contracted, and circulation service centers were built in 1,324 counties (or cities) and 17,268 villages, which indicated the preliminary establishment of circulation mechanism. Through land circulation, intensive and large-scale management was realized, production cost was reduced, agriculture was developed, and farmers’ income was increased.
(3) Large-scale land management made progress. So far, over 30 percent of lands have been circulated and a large group of large-scale farm households have developed. According to the MoA, by the end of 2014, an area of 26.87 million hectares of land was circulated, which accounted for 30.4 percent of family contracting land; there were over 3.41 million scale management farm households with more than 50 mu (3.33 hectares) of land. These farm households increased the investment of production factors, which facilitated the intensive agricultural management, and effectively increased productivity. They have become the major force for promoting China’s agricultural modernization.
(4) The implementation of supporting policies was accelerated. Support policy for large-scale business entities is an important guarantee for promoting modern agriculture. The MoA actively collaborated with the Ministry of Finance, the Banking Regulatory Commission and other ministries to enact support policies, release new agricultural subsidies, build reform pilots for setting target prices of cotton and soybean, and direct local governments to establish support policies. So far, nine provinces (or municipalities) including Jiangsu, Fujian, Yunnan, Sichuan, Shanxi, Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Gansu and Tianjin took support measure based on their local conditions. Jiangsu province placed its policy emphasis on supporting farm households with a land area ranging from 100 mu (about 6.67 hectares) to 300 mu (20 hectares); Shanxi province created a directory of demonstration family farms at provincial level, municipal level and county level.
