Practice of "Work Contracted to Households" in Xiaogang Village in Fengyang County, Anhui

Xiaogang village is home to 115 villagers in 18 households. Before the implementation of the household contract responsibility system, the village's agricultural production system was limited and could not achieve food self-sufficiency. In order to solve this problem, people in the village decided that the only solution at the time was to "distribute the land to each household". But in the era of collective labour this was politically incorrect and it was a major risk to distribute the land privately.

On the evening of 24 November 1978, representatives of the 18 households gathered in the home of a villager called Yan Lihua.After discussion, they reached consensus on three issues: –distributing the land to households, not asking for subsidies and food from the State and raising the children of persons in prison to the age of 18 – and designed a consent form.

After the meeting, the representatives of 18 households contracted farmland to the households according to the population, and their ten farm cattle were distributed one to each two households. The task of agricultural and subsidiary product sales assigned to Xiaogang village by the state, loan repayments, the public funds collected by the commune and the amount of money and food subsidies from various types of personnel were contracted to each household according to the population. After completing the task of contracting, the remaining products were owned by the households.

Through the practice of "work contracted to households" Xiaogang village allocated the basic units of production to the farmers, making the farmers become the masters of land management and hence stimulating their enthusiasm for the development of agricultural production. In the autumn of 1979, the total food output of Xiaogang village was 66 tons, equivalent to the sum of food output of the whole team from 1966 to 1970. The successful experience of developing agricultural production in Xiaogang village was quickly copied and spread.