Land Reform Reemergence

After years of waiting and delays, China has announced that they will enact a major land reform policy, that will undoubtedly help citizens out towards the rural areas of China. The New York Times reports that "Under the current system, farmers are assigned small plots of land. Under the new policy, the government will establish markets where farmers can subcontract, lease, exchange, or swap land-use rights or join cooperatives". This policy will enable farmers to become more independent with their land, and can now pursue different avenues as far as crop rotation and more fertile land, that will hopefully increase the output of these farms. The Chinese also hope to reduce the disparity between the rich and the poor with this reform, by allowing farmings to gain more land, which in turn could produce more capital for them. This land reform marks the reemergence of Deng's land reform policies 30 years ago. The outcome of this land reform is uncertain as of now. While farmers will get more freedom in choosing what to do with their land, and how much land they can acquire, there is also the question of opening the door to the free market economy. In this sense some shrewd farmers could end up with the majority of the land, leaving some farmers worse off then before. The fate of this land reform policy is just still unknown, and only time will tell if it was a good policy decision or a bad one.