Development and Utilization of Rural Idle Homesteads in the Context of Rural Revitalization
——A Case Study of Leisure Agriculture

College of City Construction, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China

Abstract The existence of a large number of idle homesteads in rural areas not only causes waste of land resources, but also injures farmers’ property rights and hinders the implementation of rural revitalization strategy. The emergence and vigorous development of rural leisure agriculture provides a new way of utilization and method for the development and utilization of rural homesteads. From the perspective of leisure agriculture, this paper analyzed the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of the overall development model of rural idle homestead, farmstay model and characteristic industry development model, and discussed the actual case to enrich the research on the development and utilization of idle homestead. It pointed out that there are problems such as insufficient tourism resources and single management content, lack of legal basis for revitalizing the homestead, lagging reform of rural land property rights system, and difficulty in expanding the space for leisure tourism development in the process of developing rural idle homestead. It is recommended to provide reference for the effective improvement of the efficiency of idle homestead utilization, increase farmers’ income, and promote the rural revitalization strategy.

Key words Rural revitalization, Rural idle homestead, Development and utilization, Leisure agriculture

1 Introduction

TheReporttothe19thNationalCongressoftheCommunistPartyofChinaclearly pointed out that it is necessary to implement the rural revitalization strategy, adhere to the priority development of agriculture and rural areas, consolidate and improve the basic rural management system. This has an epoch-making milestone significance in the development of "three rural" issues in China. The important foundation of rural revitalization lies in the improvement of the rural land system, and the rural homestead is an important part, it is related to the economic development of the rural areas and the long-term stability of China. Rural homestead refers to the land that has been built, constructed or decided to be used to build a house, including the land on which the house was built, the land that has been built but not covered, and the planned land for building houses[1]. The idle homestead is a phenomenon in which the attachments on the homestead and the homestead itself are vacant, abandoned, or fall into disuse. At present, China’s rural idle homesteads have formed a certain scale, accounting for 10%-15% of the country’s 16 million ha of homesteads[2]. These idle homesteads have brought certain hazards to farmers’ own rights and interests, China’s cultivated land protection system, as well as the grain security.

In order to smoothly promote and realize the rural revitalization strategy, it is necessary to effectively manage the existing idle homestead. The management of rural idle homesteads is a complex and long-term systematic project. On the one hand, it is necessary to promote circulation of idle homesteads in compliance with laws and voluntary withdrawal with proper compensation. On the other hand, it is required to allow to develop and re-utilize idle homesteads under the existing legal framework, to bring into play the property nature and value attribute of homesteads, reduce land waste, effectively utilize land, and increase income of farmers. Through the case study of the idle homestead utilization model from the perspective of leisure agriculture, we summarized the problems in the development and utilization of the idle homestead and came up with some pertinent recommendations, in order to provide references for the development and utilization of rural idle homestead.

2 Development mode of rural idle homestead

As a basic production factor, land is an extremely important material foundation for economic development of human beings. With the acceleration of the urbanization process, a large number of people flow into the cities, causing the urban population to grow rapidly, the scale of the city to expand, and environmental pollution such as traffic congestion, air pollution, and water pollution, increasing the living and working pressure of urban residents, and leading to a series of "urban diseases". By comparison, rural areas have natural ecological and environmental advantages, which attract urban residents to use their leisure time to "escape" the city to go to rural areas for sightseeing, then it promotes the development of agricultural tourism and leisure recreation, and also promotes the emergence of leisure agriculture mode.

Leisure agriculture is a new industrial form with the three rural issues as the background, uses agricultural landscapes, agricultural resources and rural environment, based on agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery production and rural cultural life, takes leisure farms as carriers to enhance people’s experience in agricultural production and rural life. Leisure agriculture is an effective path to deepen the maximum productivity of agricultural resources to increase farmers’ income. Leisure agriculture is mainly a development model that integrates agricultural production with tourists’ participation in agricultural activities. Through the development of agricultural resources and agricultural products with tourism and tourism value, it promotes the effective use of rural land, the employment transfer of farmers and the increase of farmers’ income.

2.1OveralldevelopmentmodeThe overall development mode is a development mode mainly based on the participation of farmers and the government. The precondition is that the development area has relatively beautiful rural scenery, more comfortable climatic conditions and ecological environment, which can attract tourists to visit. Government should first transform rural infrastructure, such as tap water, roads, natural gas, electrical circuits, health centers and other infrastructure and public facilities, and then organize surrounding farmers to carry out corresponding agricultural production, and concentrate on developing modern leisure agriculture. It is necessary to guide farmers to develop diversified agricultural leisure and sightseeing projects according to market demand, combined with local characteristics and advantages, to attract urban residents to go to rural areas for sightseeing and leisure, thus driving the development of rural economy.

In Guandi Village, Yanqi Town, Huairou District, Beijing, the village committee carried out planning and transformation of the whole village in accordance with the principle of "fully respecting the intention of farmers, focusing on farmers’ investment and supplemented by village collective investment". After transformation, Guandi Village has become a modern new rural and comprehensive tourism and leisure area with distinctive historical and humanistic characteristics, complete functions, beautiful environment and advanced facilities, reputed as "the first village of folklore tourism in Beijing suburbs"[3]. This mode is practiced by Zhejiang Land Holidays Industry Group Co., Ltd. This company operates the entire village’s homestead in a unified manner. It uses its own funds to re-plan the entire village, including the use of the villagers’ homestead to rebuild the four-story buildings. The first floor is still used by the farmers themselves, and the second to fourth floors can be rented out by the company to other urban residents. Besides, it continues to improve the supporting facilities of the village and improve the living environment of the village. The company enjoys the right to rent out the idle homestead to obtain the rental income. The consumers get the right to use the house, but the actual homestead use right still belongs to the farmers. Such model of market-oriented operation of idle homesteads can maximize the economic value of the land and realize the rational and effective use of rural idle homesteads[4].

2.2FarmstaymodeIn the farmstay mode, farmers are working subjects, taking the farmer family as the unit, the agricultural products produced by themselves and the surrounding rural scenery and natural landscape as the carrier, to attract tourists at low prices to eat farmhouse rice, farmhouse food, live in farmhouses, do farming work, enjoy farmhouse entertainment, and buy farmhouse products. By bringing into play their own labor and wisdom, farmers renovate the originally idle houses and homesteads, break the traditional farming mode of homestead and farmland division, and integrate the courtyard and the house to realize full development and utilization. For example, it is possible to use the house for rural tourism reception, use the courtyard for crop planting and other seedling production activities, and use the idle homestead to develop the family handicraft industry, so as to attract tourists to operate and practice, and increase the fun of their own experience. However, farmstays are mainly concentrated in suburbs or places with large flow of people, which is difficult for remote mountainous areas.

Nongke Village, Youai Town, Pixian County, Chengdu is a typical representative of the farmstay model using idle homesteads and houses. Its main modes include farm garden type, flower and fruit appreciation type, scenic spot hostel type and garden inn type. Transforming the collective economic organization into a tourism enterprise for development, and making the idle homesteads into leisure and entertainment place with the style of farmer family through the greening and beautification effectively change the situation of scattered rural homesteads, neatly renovate the rural village and promoting the rural economic development. For example, in Jingxi Town in Minhou County of Fujian Province, the proportion of idle homesteads in rural areas is relatively high, and the proportion of idle homesteads in some villages has exceeded 50%. Relying on special geographical location and environmental advantages, Jingxi Town has proposed a driving mode of leisure tourism industry. Relying cultural and ecological landscape such as Sandiejing Forest Park and Bashi Official Road Relics, Jingxi Town vigorously developed the tourism economy. Using this way, it promotes the development of rural idle homesteads in surrounding areas. In addition, the government has also issued policies to encourage farmers to rely on tourist attractions to develop farmstay. At the same time of promoting economic development, it has further promoted the development and utilization of idle houses and idle homesteads[5].

2.3CharacteristicindustrydevelopmentmodeThe development mode of characteristic industries is mainly adopts the mode of cooperation between farmers and enterprises. The enterprises will arrange the funds for the idle homesteads of the farmers, combine the advantages of the local agricultural industry, develop products with local characteristics, and form their own unique agricultural brands, so that the brand effect attracts urban residents to purchase and consume, and accordingly promote rural economic growth.

2.3.1Developing characteristic planting. Caijiawa Village, Jugezhuang Town, Miyun County, Beijing, was once a poor and backward village. The roads in the village were narrow, the streets were muddy and the infrastructure was poor. Most of the villagers went out to do migrant work, which led to the idle of the village house. Since the renovation of the old village, the village branch has taken various measures to actively introduce enterprise financing, taking the development and utilization of rural collective land as the core, speeding up land consolidation and circulation, improving infrastructure construction, and improving the living conditions of the villagers. New residential areas replace the idle homesteads with other homesteads, and use the idle homesteads and other collective construction land for developing characteristic planting. It has built 333.33 ha of eco-agricultural industrial park, including a 40 ha of sightseeing and picking garden, planting large cherry trees, winter jujube trees, and California plums. Besides, it also built eight high-standard greenhouses, and planted tropical fruits such as papaya, guava and mango. On the basis of this, more than 60 000 cherry trees were planted in the second phase, forming the new countryside with theme of processing agricultural products as the theme and leisure and sightseeing as the concept[3].

2.3.2Developing characteristic fishery. Located in the middle of the Longgao Peninsula, Heqi Village in Shapu Town of Fuqing City is rich in marine resources and is a small fishing village in Bohai Bay. It belongs to the inland sea, has a large tidal flat, and the economy is underdeveloped. About 80% of the villagers in Heqi Village go out to work, and those left behind are mainly the elderly, women and children, leading to the emergence of a large number of idle homesteads. According to statistics, the idle homestead area accounts for about 70% of the area of the house in the village, about 40 000 m2. Taking advantage of the idle breeding farms on the beach, as well as the idle homesteads in the village, Heqi Village vigorously develop special seafood tourism and holiday projects, fully utilize the idle homesteads, which promotes the development of the local economy[5].

3 Problems in the development of the of rural idle homesteads

3.1InsufficienttourismresourcesandsinglebusinesscontentFirstly, the rural tourist attractions mainly rely on their better geographical location and beautiful ecological scenery. There is serious problem of homogenization, the characteristics are not distinct. Due to the poor brand packaging awareness and the weak regional competitiveness, the rural tourism resources are insufficient. It is difficult to develop new products to attract urban residents to go to rural areas for sightseeing. Secondly, the low-end products of leisure agricultural management are mostly based on sightseeing, catering and accommodation, and lack of diversity. In particular, there are lack of projects and activities that reflect rural folk customs and festivals and are highly interactive. Thirdly, tourist activities are seasonally prominent, and there is a large difference between the north and the south. For most northern regions, the winter season is obviously dull season. Fourthly, the business content is single, it has not formed complete sightseeing, leisure, and cultural industry chain, lacks promotion of related industries. The leisure agricultural tourism products are nearly the same and like fast foods. Urban tourists have no other choice. The products have no appeal. As a result, the time of tourists staying in rural areas is very short, most one day.

3.2LackoflegalbasisforvitalizingidlehomesteadsIn order to strengthen the management of rural homesteads, the state and local governments have issued a series of laws, regulations and policies, which clearly stipulate the ownership, use rights and property rights of rural homesteads, and restrict or even prohibit the transfer or rent of collective l;and to conduct non-agricultural construction and take back the land used not in accordance with the approved use. In terms of the disposal of idle homesteads, since the current rural homestead is a kind of welfare guarantee for farmers and characterized as no withdrawal, no limit period, and no payment, vitalizing the rural homesteads lacks legal basis. In the Property Law, there is no clear provision on the are a kind of, they have the characteristics of no withdrawal, indefinite period, and free use. Therefore, there is no legal basis for revitalizing rural housing sites; There is no clear regulation on mortgage financing of rural homesteads. The usufructuary rights of the farmer’s homestead can not be guaranteed effectively, which will limit the financing channel of farmers. These provisions have become an access barrier for the leisure agriculture tourism market, limiting the asset development potential of rural homesteads, resulting in insufficient motivation and slow development of rural homesteads.

3.3ReformofrurallandpropertyrightsystemlaggingbehindWith the rapid advancement of new urbanization, land and property rights have become apparent, and farmers’ demands for protection of housing property rights including the right to use homesteads has become increasingly strong. For the farmers, the right to use the homestead is incomplete, and the income rights of the homestead are not approved by law. According to the theory of property rights, farmers can build houses to meet the living requirements, obtain economic benefits through using the homesteads, for example, making operating development of homesteads and renting the homesteads. However, the current system of the right to use rural homestead has no clear provision on this, and it cannot adapt to the current property rights of rural homesteads.

3.4DifficultiesinexpandingthespaceforleisuretourismdevelopmentAt present, the problem of occupying too much homestead is very serious in rural areas. To regulate the use of rural homesteads, many areas have issued land management regulations. For example, Tianjin clearly defined that villages with proper conditions should make a unified plan in building villager houses, and villages without conditions should comply with the following principle: if the per capita farmland is less than 667 m2, the land area per farmer household should not exceed 167 m2; if the per capita farmland is larger than 667 m2, the land area per farmer household should not exceed 200 m2. According to statistics, most of the homesteads exceed the standard, but it still can not meet the land space demand for the development of leisure agricultural tourism. Besides, in the process of confirming the property right of rural homestead, limited by the policy that attachments should not be included, per capita construction land should be not greater than 30 m2, and the per capita house area is not greater than 55 m2, the confirmed area of per capita homestead use right will be reduced up to 80% compared with the actual area. In summary, the current land and housing policies have greatly restricted the development of leisure agriculture. Furthermore, in both the mountainous area and reservoir area, the ecological environment is vulnerable, and their planning should focus on protecting the natural ecological environment, and cannot provide more development space for the development of the tourism industry.

4 Recommendations for development and utilization of idle homesteads

4.1EnrichingtourismproductsanddevelopingdiversifiedoperationmodeBecause the current rural leisure tourism products are single and the characteristics are not distinct, it is recommended to enrich tourism products and create tourism products in combination with local characteristics. In the first place, it is recommended to adopt the mode of enterprise operation to manage and operate the idle homesteads, and truly realize the connection with the market, to ensure the operating efficiency. In the process of vitalizing and utilizing the rural idle homesteads, village collectives, government departments and enterprises should cooperate with each other to fully explore the local characteristics and create a special fine tourist route. Also, it is recommended to properly concentrate the collective resources of the village, for example, through making reform of the shareholding system and lease, standardizing the work of resource sublease and income distribution, to fully safeguard the lawful rights and interests of farmers.

4.2FullyexploringtheruralconnotationandimprovingtheoverallenvironmentoftheruralareasFor the existing rural tourism with the development of rural homestead as the core, it is recommended to fully explore the local cultural connotation and combine the advantages of local resources, and improve the overall environment of the rural areas. The advantage of rural resources mainly lies in the beautiful environment, excellent ecology, unsophisticated rural buildings, simple folk customs,etc. Therefore, the development and utilization of idle homesteads should make full use of these resource advantages to achieve optimization of the combination and form unique characteristics, and promote products with strong attraction to the market. What’s more, the development of idle homesteads can also rely on folk tourism, tourism services, and elderly care industry. The resources and advantages of the villages should be combined to further develop and utilize idle homesteads.

4.3StrengtheningpolicyguidanceandenhancingthedevelopmentandutilizationofidlehomesteadsRural areas with relatively rich rural tourism resources are areas with vulnerable ecological environment. In the future, when the development of tourism facilities is limited, it is recommended to intensively use rural homesteads by a variety of ways. It is recommended to seize the opportunity of the reform of the rural homestead system and formulate a number of measures to guide farmers who occupy excessive homesteads to withdraw reasonably. For example, they should pay proper amount of fees for the use of households with over-standard occupation of homestead, through centralized resettlement, pension care security or economic compensation. And it is recommended to encourage the homestead with inefficient use to withdraw to make room for the development of rural leisure tourism.

4.4ImprovingrelevantlawsandpoliciestosupportthedevelopmentofruralidlehomesteadsThe development and utilization of rural idle homesteads is favorable for accelerating the construction of new socialist countryside and has an important impact on China’s urbanization process. Therefore, the laws and regulations related to development and utilization of homesteads should advance with the times. It is recommended to accelerate the revision of existing laws and regulations related to the homestead system, and incorporate the reform of homestead system and homestead right system into the track of rule by laws, so as to increase the utilization efficiency of laws and regulations related to the homestead. Finally, it is recommended to enrich the connotation of the homestead property, make innovation in the utilization of homesteads, and improve the management system for the development and utilization of rural homesteads.