Environmental boost

Qi Gang grows corn and wheat on the 133 hectares of farmland he leases. He has also found new business opportunities in post-harvest waste, such as wheat and corn stubble, and corncobs.

"The dried stubble can be used to feed cattle, and (rotting) corncobs can be used to grow mushrooms," he said.

Every year after harvest, Qi sells 10,000 metric tons of wheat and corn stubble to factories that produce animal feed in Hunan and Hubei provinces. Whatever remains is processed into flammable fuel and sold to a plastics factory in Jieshou for 650 yuan a ton.

"Farmers used to abandon the stubble or burn it in the open air, which caused air pollution," he said. "But after processing, it makes a good replacement fuel for coal in factories."

In 1999, when he started leasing land from farmers to grow wheat and corn, he only had a few hectares, but in the years that followed, the amount he leased grew rapidly, he said.

Yu, from the Jieshou agricultural commission, said one of the main reasons for the increased circulation of farmland in the city is the certificates that have been issued to households in recent years to ensure people's property rights.

Since 2016, when the city began promoting the registration of farmland on a household basis, 138,000 certificates have been issued to cover every family in Jieshou's rural areas.

Before, the farmers lacked detailed records related to their land, which sometimes resulted in disputes between neighbors, even though most farmers only rented land to their friends or close family members, he said.

"There were a number of disputes, even among relatives, and some farmers who returned to their homes after spending years away in big cities discovered they could not reclaim their land because of a lack of documentation," Yu said.

The issuance of certificates has largely solved the problem.

"The certificate is like a property certificate for city residents," he said. "With the certificate, farmers have no worries when they rent out their land, and it also provides a guarantee for companies who lease land from the farmers."

Zhang Xingming, a farmer in Jieshou's Bingji township, received his land certificate in 2016.

The red booklet includes information such as the names of his family members and the area and boundaries of his land. "It's like an ID card for the land," he said.

His 0.2 hectare plot is leased to Sanxi Farm Corp, which grows fruit, such as peaches and pears. The company pays him 3,000 yuan a year, along with a smaller sum for helping to pick the fruit when it is ripe.

Across China, more than 80 percent of all farmland operated by farmers had been certified by the end of 2017, and the remainder was expected to be completed by the end of last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Zhu Chunxiu, head of the Sichuan Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said the province completed certifying all farmland in April, and the work was supported by most of the farmers.

Zhang Hongyu, from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said certifying farmland promotes land circulation and plays an essential role in developing the rural economy and carrying out the government's rural rejuvenation strategy.

The strategy, proposed by the top leadership in 2017, aims to modernize the rural areas and agriculture by 2035, and build a strong rural economy by 2050.