A key decision from China’s Third Plenum will give farmers more property rights. The country’s 650 million rural residents are currently bounded by three types of rural land.

Namely farm land for agricultural production, non-farm land for housing and collective construction land that belongs to a village committee. CCTV asked the director of the CPC Central Committee’s Rural Working Group, Chen Xiwen to explain what it means for farmers to enjoy more property rights.

Chinese farmers’ properties mainly consist of two sorts: their houses and their farmland. Under the current legal framework of the "household contract responsibility system", each rural family is entitled to occupy, use and receive the proceeds of their farmland. Chen Xiwen says the government must protect farmers’ land before giving them more property rights.

"I think there are two steps. First, we need to look at if those property rights, which are already specified in the law, are indeed safeguarded. And secondly, we cannot breach our current system of collective land ownership. Families can profit from farm land under the household contract responsibility system, and farmers directly elect their own village chiefs," said Chen.

In addition to ensuring rural residents’ basic property rights for their farm land, policymakers have also been thinking about letting farmers trade their non-agricultural land in the market. Chen Xiwen says this falls outside the current law, which regulates that all types of rural land belongs to specific collective groups rather than the state.

"There have been some breakthroughs. If you look at city suburbs, many migrant workers are renting farmers’ houses, so such non-agricultural housing land has been generating market values. But our law doesn’t specify whether this is legal or if such land can be purchased or sold in the market. If we do recognize it, then we probably need new provisions in the law," said Chen.

Chen Xiwen says it’s a good idea for some parts of the country to experiment, but only under strict supervisions of the central or local governments.