New model makes dry land fertile in Henan

Agricultural production has made progress in Menglou township of Dengzhou city in central Henan province over the past two years, after the local government introduced a business model to circulate land use rights in the market.

Zhou Junjian, 58, a farmer, said he now has more free time to take care of his grandchildren instead of working the land constantly.

He and fellow villagers chose to transfer the use rights of the land to a State-owned company, instead of transferring them directly to a large private farming enterprise.

"We signed a contract with the State-owned Dengzhou Rural Land Development Co, from 2016 to 2019, for 9,000 yuan ($1,300) per hectare annually when the model was introduced," Zhou said.

Chen Zhipeng, deputy general manager of the company, said that setting up a State-owned company to deal with land issues was an innovative development model that links farmers to the enterprises.

After improving the potential of the land through such things as setting up irrigation facilities, it is rented to large farming enterprises, Chen said.

The township has long been hampered by a dry climate, and the widely scattered plots of 0.6 hectares each made it even harder for Zhou to irrigate.

"Irrigation is a big problem. Back then, we were not sure we would have a harvest, even though we were working diligently," Zhou said.

"Some agricultural enterprises didn't want to invest here because the land is barren and lacks sources of irrigation. But now, with more irrigation facilities built up by the State-owned company, mechanized planting is widely seen in the fields."

With a series of measures, including building up the irrigation system, the State-owned company turned some dry land that barely yielded any crops into quality farmland. Currently the company has cultivated new arable land of 106.7 hectares in Menglou.

Li Shuang, the Party chief in Menglou, introduced the model of separating rural ownership rights from contract rights, and management rights from each other, meaning more local farmers were liberated from the land.

"It has diversified the traditional agricultural business and brought more opportunities, having a significant impact on the upstream, midstream, as well as the downstream of the agricultural industry," Li said.

More profitable crops such as medicinal herbs were planted on the fields.

Zhou, the farmer, said, "More elderly people in the labor force, like me, don't gain only rental income but also earn money through working for the large faming enterprises during the busy season."

Under the new model, the land use rights on 3,800 hectares have been transferred from local farmers to the State-owned company, accounting for 98 percent of the township's total farm area.