The Household Contract Responsibility System

The household contract responsibility system with income linked to output, commonly known as "the all-round contract," allowed farming households to contract with the collective economic organizations, so that the means of production still belonged to the collectives, while the farming itself was carried out by individual families in accordance with the principle "to each according to his work." The collectives and the households thus played different roles in production and operations.

An arrangement created by Chinese farmers, the system was adopted as an effective reform measure on the Chinese mainland in the early 1980s. An outcome of rural economic structural reform, it represented a turning point in China's rural land system. Rural reform, with farm output quotas fixed by household as a basic principle, was the first step in China's campaign of internal reform.

Xiaogang Village in Fengyang County, Anhui Province, was the first to break down the old institutional barriers and allot farm output quotas to individual households. In November 1978, 18 households signed a contract that would allocate the farmland owned by the village collective to individual households who would take full responsibility for their profits and losses. This opened the way for what was later called the "household contract responsibility system." Similar approaches were adopted in Sichuan and some other provinces, thus ushering in the era of rural reform in China.

The approach of "allocating farm output quotas to individual households" was first confirmed in the National Conference on Rural Work Minutes, a document endorsed by the CPC Central Committee in January 1982, as a form of responsibility system under the socialist collective economy. Soon afterward, the "household contract responsibility system" was introduced across the country, bringing tremendous changes in rural areas.

The system encouraged the productive output of individual farmers while maintaining unified collective operation. It was applicable to both scattered small operations and relatively centralized operations of moderate scale. Rural labor productivity increased, the rural economy developed, and the standards of living of farmers improved. The household contract responsibility system has proven well-suited to Chinese agriculture, rural productive forces, and land management.

家庭聯產承包責任制

家庭聯產承包責任制，又稱“大包干”，是由農戶以家庭為單位同集體經濟組織簽訂承包合同，主要生產資料仍歸集體所有，分配方面實行按勞分配原則，生產經營活動中集體和家庭有分有合。家庭聯產承包責任制是20世紀80年代初期中國大陸農村推行的一項重要改革，是農村土地制度的重要轉折和農村經濟體制改革的產物。更為重要的是，這一制度是中國農民的偉大創造，以“包產到戶”為標志的農村改革拉開了中國對內改革的大幕。

安徽省鳳陽縣梨園公社小崗村是較早沖破舊體制限制，自發采取“包干到戶”的地區。1978年11月，小崗村18位農民簽下《生死狀》，將村內土地分開承包，實行“分田到戶，自負盈虧”，開創了家庭聯產承包責任制的先河。四川等其他一些省份也采取了“包產到組”等類似做法，開啟了中國農村改革的進程。

1982年1月，中共中央印發《全國農村工作會議紀要》，第一次肯定“包產到戶、包干到戶”都是社會主義集體經濟的責任制。此后，家庭聯產承包責任制逐步在全國推開。中國農村的面貌由此發生了翻天覆地的變化。

中國農村普遍實行家庭聯產承包責任制后，既發揮了集體統一經營的優越性，又調動了農民個人生產的積極性，既能適應分散經營的小規模經營，也能適應相對集中的適度規模經營，促進了勞動生產率的提高和農村經濟的全面發展，提高了廣大農民的生活水平。實踐證明，家庭聯產承包責任制是適應中國農業特點、農村生產力發展水平和管理水平的一種較好的經濟形式。