In recent years, the contract responsibility system has become an important part of the development of agricultural production in China. It is a form of agricultural organization based on contractual responsibility for management and output, with a focus on the management of agricultural production and the maintenance of the rights and interests of the contract parties.
In brief, under the contract responsibility system, the agricultural production contract or the agricultural corporation contract between the agricultural production organization of the state and the rural collective economic organization is signed. Under the contract, the party of the state should entrust the right of production and the right of contracting to the rural collective economic organization. The rural collective economic organization, in accordance with the fundamental principles of the socialist economy in terms of management, shall be responsible for the total production and proper operation of the contract and account for an agreed proportion of the gross output (contract performance ratio).
The contractual responsibility system reflects the nature of the combination of the state and collective economic organization when it comes to agricultural production. According to the contract system, agricultural production is no longer a unitary organization and management of the state, but the combination of multiple forces and the division of the rights and responsibilities of the fiscal and the collective. The contracting entities are the state, the collective and individuals, forming a contractual responsibility system for agricultural management.
The development of the contractual responsibility system has helped facilitate the reform and development of the collective economic organizations in rural China, and has achieved gratifying results. On the one hand, it has informed land ownership, stimulated the enthusiasm of agricultural production, enhanced the efficiency of agricultural production, and enabled the collective economic organization to focus on the development of market economy. On the other hand, it has played an important role in promoting the construction of the system of contracted responsibility and the reform and development of collective economic organizations, promoting the reasonable control and rational utilization of collective assets, and stimulating the enthusiasm for technological innovation.
The contractual responsibility system has also enabled agricultural production, resources and technology to develop rapidly and synchronously. At the same time, by formulating reasonable rules for the distribution and management of agricultural products, the contractual responsibility system has provided a more advantageous policy to agricultural production, creating a good development environment for the rational allocation of land, cultivation and labor forces, and eventually to the improvement of the performance of agricultural production.
However, the contract responsibility system may also bring some problems. First, in some cases, the contract entrusting right is not properly handled, leading to a decrease in the enthusiasm of the collective economic organizations. Second, since the introduction of the contract responsibility system, the state-owned agricultural production units have experienced a large amount of labour transfer across regions and the salary gap has widened. Third, in the implementation of the contract responsibility system, the farmers pay more attention to the primitive accumulation of capital, resulting in a thin structure of the organizational chain in agricultural production and rational utilization of resources.
Therefore, the introduction of the contractual responsibility system should be carried out in a way that takes into account the local actual environment, fully researches the new composition of rural production, and reasonably reorganizes the agricultural production. The state should promote the system of contractual responsibility and transfer the main responsibility from the state to the collective economic organization, in order to make the collective organization bear the main responsibility for agricultural production. The state must also further strengthen the construction of the system, strengthen the supervision of the sustainable development of agriculture, increase financial support for agriculture, support the innovation of technology and products to improve the agricultural industry and increase farmers’ income.
