1. Policy background and main content In 2013, the central government has stuck to the orderly transfer of land, and the development of various kinds of appropriately sized agricultural operations. The 3rd Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee has encouraged the transfer of land use rights in open market to specialized households, farmers, cooperatives, and agro companies, and the development of various kinds of appropriately sized agricultural operations. The No.1 Cental Document has said that efforts should be made to stick to a compensated, voluntary and law abiding basis, lead the orderly transfer of land use rights in rural areas to specialized households, family farm and farmers, cooperatives, so as to develop various kinds of appropriately sized agricultural operations.
2. Policy implementation and effect evaluation As the rural labor forces are moving to the second and tertiary industries, the land transfer has been accelerating fast, and the appropriately sized agricultural operations have made positive progress. Till the end of 2013, the transfer acreage of household contract lands has reached to 22.667 million hectares, with 26 percent transfer ratio. Eight provinces have their transfer acreage account for over 30 percent of the contract land acreage, and five provinces have their ratios below 15 percent. Subcontract acreage accounted for 46.9 percent of the whole transfer acreage. Among all the transferred farmland, 60.3 percent went to farmer households, 20.4 percent to cooperatives, and 9.4 percent to companies. There have been 3.18 million specialized households and family farms operating over 3.33 hectares of land. The development of land transfer and sized operations have motivated the operating parties to invest, increased the comprehensive agro production capabilities, and play an important role in securing the national food security and the provision of main agro products, promoting the farmers' income and the agricultural efficiency.
According to the demands of the State Council, the Ministry of Agriculture has continued in 2013 to conduct the standardized management and service pilot of land transfer, prioritized the pilot projects of nurturing new-type agro production and operation bodies such as family farms, establishing the entry supervision system of companies’ renting and using of farmers, contract land, founding of the risk insurance of land transfer, and provided policies and measures to promote the management and service of the transfer of rural land contract use, and to advance the healthy development of the appropriately sized agricultural operations.
