Land Transfer Promoted by the Land Trust Model

Shaoxing county in Zhejiang is the cradle of the land trust service system, known as the "Shaoxing Model". When carrying out land trust, Shaoxing county adhered to the principles of "guaranteeing ownership, stabilizing contracting rights, and invigorating the right to use", "legal, voluntary, and paid" and "not changing the agricultural use of land, ensuring the re-cultivating capacity of cultivated lands" in strict accordance with legal provisions governing the transfer of land-use rights, and achieved good results. The land trust is implemented with paid transfer. In the operation, the value is reasonably determined based on the soil and geographical location to ensure that the two parties can accept it. The specific practices are as follows:

Establish three-level – county, town and village - land trust service agencies according to the concept of trust service. The land trust service system is a major feature of the Shaoxing land trust. The practice is to establish land trust service organizations at the county, town and village levels – a county-level land trust service centre, a town-level land trust service centre and a village-level land trust service centre operated by village economic cooperatives. The three-level organization provides layered responsibility and vertical management. The main service content of the land trust service system includes the registration of supply and demand and information release before the transfer of land use rights, the intermediary coordination and identification of the contracting parties during the transfer and the tracking service and any dispute mediation after land transfer.

The collectives carry out unified planning of rentable lands and establish a registration system of land-use rights transfers. In accordance with the particular land situation, each pilot village determines the quantity and location of the land and of the farmers involved for use in the transfer process. In order to meet the contiguous land development, land replacement can be used for individual lands that cannot be transferred to ensure that the lands available for transfer have the scale effect of contiguous development. The village economic cooperatives uniformly handle the lands of the farmers who require to rent them; they refer to the income of the lands for food harvesting in the previous year, formulate the land entrusted lease standard based on local conditions and provide a standard commission contract for signature by individual farmers. The village economic cooperatives that transfer the land use rights submit a trust application to the town-level land trust service station or directly to the land trust service centre. Large-scale farmers and industrial and commercial owners who need to transfer land use rights also submit a written trust application to the land trust service centre. The town-level land trust station will match and coordinate according to the collected transfer information and the entrustment requirements of both parties and encourage both parties to reach an agreement.

The land trust centre tracks the services of the transferee parties and distributes the land management income. After a land transfer, the land trust organization follows up and supervises the land use and management status of the large entrusted households. If problems are found in the management status, the land trust centre takes appropriate measures to help the large entrusted households to resolve any crisis to ensure that the farmers who transfer the land use rights receive normal incomes. For disputes arising from the land transfer between the two parties, the trust service agency is responsible for assisting in mediation and handling matters in line with the relevant laws and policies, and reasonably safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of both the principal and the trustee. At the same time, the land trust centre provides large entrusted households with support such as credit funds, market information and technology promotion. One year after the transfer management, the large contracting households pay the corresponding contracted amount to the village economic cooperative as per the contract signed with the village economic cooperative. After obtaining the contracted funds, the village economic cooperative will pay the rent to the farmers according to the land use right leasing entrustment contract signed by the village collective and the farmer households.

The "Shaoxing model" achieved remarkable results. After Shaoxing City took the lead in implementing land trust services in the country in February 2001, in less than half a year, the county transferred 158,000 mu of land, and the land transfer rate has exceeded 40 percent. The transferred land has been concentrated in the hands of large-scale farmers and industrial and commercial owners who have the ability, funds, and market. Among them, 50 percent of the farmland has been adjusted for the planting structure, and the land output has increased by 5 to 10 times, allowing the land to achieve optimal benefits.

For more information, please contact WFP China COE (wfpcn.coe@wfp.org)