It is often presumed that farmers' insecurity over their property rights is a
fundamental cause of inefficient utilization of agricultural land in China
today.1 In particular, it has been assumed that this gives rise to a lack of
concern for long-term soil fertility. To rectify this, the Chinese government
directed in 1993 that farmers' land tenure should be guaranteed through new 30-year contracts after their current contracts expire.2 (Most of China's land
contracts commenced in 1984 and were scheduled to last for 15 years). The
announced land-tenure program is more than a mere extension of farmers'
cultivation rights: the new policy proposes io freeze land adjustments during
the next contract period regardless of population growth ? a measure aimed
to stabilize tenure relations and thereby encourage farm investments. It is also
supposed to encourage farmers who no longer wish to farm to transfer their
use right to others so as to avoid the under-utilization of land resources.
We thus enquired of farmers in a survey of eight counties as to their
likelihood of accepting such a policy. The majority, 62 per cent, said they
prefer the existing situation: one that periodically reassigns land among farm
families in response to changes in the composition of their families.3