How do We Develop into a Leading Land Asset Keeper?

17 min readApr 9, 2021

Food security is the basis for rapid economic development and a condition for social harmony and stability. As the most populous country in the world, With a tremendous population but comparatively little land, China has been facing food security challenges for a long time. Affected by factors such as non-agricultural construction land and the adjustment of the agricultural industry structure when ecologically converting cultivated land back to forest or grassland, after the reform and opening up, the amount of agricultural arable land especially high-quality and fertile arable land has decreased to varying degrees year by year. The distribution of arable land in China is also extremely uneven. 62% of the arable land is distributed in the Huaihe River Basin and the north of it, where water resources are less than 20% of the country, whereas cultivated land with sufficient water resources in the Yangtze River Basin and its south accounts for only 38%. In addition, farmers’ low level of scientific and technological quality has led to inefficient use of high-quality arable land.

In 2009, faced with basic issues related to the national economy and people’s livelihood, in order to “stabilize own rice bowl”, in the context of the reform of the national land system, Tuliu Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Tuliu”) was established to create a comprehensive service platform for rural land transactions. Tuliu uses the unique advantages of the Internet to build a rural land transfer information release mechanism of “up-and-down linkage, full-line service”, implements information-based supervision of land, customer sources and land transaction processes, and establishes a credible, reliable and efficient digital trading platform. In 2014, Tuliu opened the land world website and expanded its service scope to the whole world.

Tuliu successively participated in the preparation of the “China Rural Land Market Report · Blue Book of Land Market” by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Tehua Doctor Station, and undertook the recommended topics of the “Transfer Market Operation Specification on Rural Land Management Rights”, and assisted the Business System Division of the Economic Management Department of the Ministry of Agriculture to compile normative documents, and provided actual cases of “Internet + Land Transfer” manuscripts for the Rural Information Service Working Committee of the Internet Society of China. At the same time, Tuliu has cooperated with many local government departments such as Hunan Hanshou, Jiangxi Fengcheng, Guangxi Nanning, Guangdong Nanxiong, Inner Mongolia Baotou and etc. to jointly invest, build and operate rural property rights exchange centers in various regions.

The core technical capabilities of Tuliu involve artificial intelligence, big data, satellite remote sensing, blockchain, digital certificate storage, VR+5G, financial risk control and other fields. After more than ten years of accumulation, Tuliu has formed an industry-leading land-based rural agricultural big data system, has grown into a leading digital rural technology platform in China, and has been selected as an excellent project for new technologies, new products and new models of digital agriculture in rural areas.

As of March 2021, Tuliu has served more than 500 million rural users through various types of products, and more than 620,000 professional and precise users look for land through Tuliu.com every day; Tuliu has listed 393 million hectares of land and traded 92 million hectares. Offline service centers cover 1,156 districts and counties, and government-enterprise cooperation covers 597 districts and counties. Tuliu has effectively promoted rural land transfer, promoted moderate-scale operations, improved grain production capacity, and digitally activated elements such as people, land, money, and other factors of rural development.

2. Background

Chinese rural land system reform began 40 years ago with allocating land on the household base. Although it increased farmers’ enthusiasm for farming at that time, it also resulted in a large area of land being broken down into elements. The situation of “the average land per capita is 0.08 hectares, and the average household is less than 0.64 hectares” has made agricultural production very inefficient and difficult to obtain financial support. Relying solely on the agricultural production income of 0.5 hectares per household is not enough to lift the farmers, who account for about half of China’s population, out of poverty. The phenomenon of farmland desertion due to farmers leaving their homes for work is very serious.

In 2001, General Secretary Xi Jinping mentioned in his doctoral dissertation “Research on China’s Rural Marketization” that currently we should do a good job in the construction of land markets around the transfer of land management rights” and “build a nationwide land transfer and transaction network.” In 2009, the №1 Central Document “Several Opinions on Promoting the Stable Development of Agriculture and Continuous Increase in Farmers’ Income in 2009” was officially released. In the section on “Stabilizing and Improving the Basic Rural Operation System”, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council formally proposed for the first time the policy goals of “stabilizing rural land contracting relations” and “establishing and improving the transfer market for land contracting management rights”. the №1 Central Document puts forward, “in accordance with the requirements of improving management and strengthening services, regulate the transfer of land contractual management rights. Encourage conditional localities to develop transfer service organizations, and provide information communication, regulatory consultation, price evaluation, contract signing, and dispute mediation for both transfer parties. In this context, Mr. Wu Yong was keenly aware that China’s rural land market is about to usher in a radical change, therefore he founded Tuliu in 2009.

In March 2012, Tuliu began to adopt the online-offline combination model to develop land transfer related businesses, creating a precedent in the industry. In April of the same year, Tuliu’s first regional land transfer center — Tuliu Zhengzhou Land Transfer Service Center was established. As of January 2013, the listed land area of Tuliu exceeded the 70 million hectares mark and became the largest land transfer information release platform in China. Massive land resources can meet the needs of different land-seeking customers.

In June 2016, Tuliu assisted the local governments of Hunan Hanshou, Hunan Yongzhou, Anhui Fuyang, Xinjiang Changji, Shandong Feixian and other regions in land transfer operations and preparations for the establishment of provincial, municipal and county-level rural property rights trading centers. Tuliu pioneered a government-enterprise cooperation model for land transfer. In October of the same year, the rural property rights transaction management system developed by Tuliu and the website of Gongzhuling City Rural Property Rights Exchange Center were launched to help Gongzhuling City collect and share information on transactions of local rural assets, resources, land, etc., realize the centralized release of rural comprehensive property rights transaction information and the dynamic approval and supervision of the process of rural property rights transactions, effectively prevent the loss of rural land, collective assets, and resources, and standardize property rights transactions.

The model of Tuliu’s covernment-enterprise joint investment, construction and operation of rural property rights trading centers has been successfully demonstrated throughout the country, and has promoted the development of standardized and marketized rural property rights transfer markets.

3. Development Goals

According to the results of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, 2,838 counties (cities, districts), 34,000 townships, and more than 550,000 administrative villages across the country have basically completed the registration and issuance of contracted land rights, and 100 million hectares of contracted land has been granted to 200 million farmers, and issued land contract management rights certificates. At present, the country’s rural contracted land certification rate has exceeded 96%. The work of confirmation and registration is basically completed, and now the land has an “identity card”, which will further stimulate the transfer of land and turn the land into “living” capital. From the perspective of land transfer rate, the land transfer rate of rural households in confirmed villages is 4.3% higher than that of non-confirmed rights villages; from the perspective of land leased area, the per household land leased area in confirmed villages is 0.02 hectares higher than that of non-confirmed rights villages. Confirmation of land rights improves the efficiency of land use and will greatly increase the property income of farmers. The efficiency of land scale operation is greatly improved, which promotes the transfer of labor, and truly realizes the transformation of farmers into citizens.

There is no doubt that large-scale land management has become an important driving factor for the acceleration of agricultural transformation. As the basis for the large-scale agricultural industry, land transfer has laid a solid foundation in terms of market, policy and conceptual penetration. Tuliu is constantly exploring and upgrading the land transfer model. Its development goals mainly involve the compliance of land transfer, land transforming into financial assets, and the online land transfer.

Complianceof land transfer: early land transfers were often based on verbal agreements. Subjective breaches of contract by the transfer and transferor were repeatedly prohibited. Such breaches led to a great risk of land abandonment. And now Tuliu is cooperating with governments across the country to establish rural property rights trading centers, and the rural property rights trading centers issue land certificates for each land transfer transaction to protect the interests of both parties to the transfer, form contract management for land transfers, and eliminate risks. Better land management, stronger the willingness of businessmen to invest, more active the construction of agricultural infrastructure , and naturally higher the value of the land.
Transformation of land into financial assets: Through the compliance of transfer, the relationship of land management will be more stable, and land will be transformed from an early means of production to a financial asset. Land has financial value, and loans can be granted to farmers through land management rights, allowing more social capital to flow into agricultural construction, and allowing rural areas to enjoy the irrigation of financial running water.
Online land transfer: land transfer is an important means of rural revitalization, and land transfer can attract a large amount of social capital, technology and talents to the countryside. High-quality land transferees are often not in the local area, which makes the cost of land transfer soar. Land search, land viewing, contract signing, and payment are all linked together, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it often takes more than one month to complete a land transfer offline. These pain points are forcing the industry to develop online. The real display of the land situation through advanced remote sensing technology, and the financial security of the transaction funds through online transactions, etc., are the key directions for the future development of Tuliu and are also the major development trends of the entire industry.
4. Platform Features

Tuliu is a comprehensive service platform for rural land transfer. On the one hand, Tuliu.com publishes land transfer information online, which mainly covers the transfer of various types of land management rights (use rights) in rural areas. At present, the amount of land information released, website visits, and App downloads exceeds that of similar platforms in the industry, occupying a leading position in the land transfer industry. On the other hand, with online and offline linkage, more than 600 land transfer service centers of Tuliu have taken root in the local area, providing professional land transfer intermediary services from selection to transaction for farmers, village collectives, and land-seeking customers. Tuliu has created a solution centered on nationwide land transfer.

(1) The land transfer portal site

The display of various types of land information in rural areas promotes the integration of the Internet and land transfer, greatly improves the efficiency of land transfer, and expands the radius of it.

(2) The land price check system

Through the analysis of the land market industry data, the real-time price of land can be accurately grasped.

(3) The land valuation system

It can realize quantitative evaluation of the pros and cons of land quality, use scientific algorithms to reset the land attribute rights, and modify the land price in multiple dimensions and in all directions, so as to realize the accurate valuation of the land value.

(4) Acre measuring instrument

The land multifunctional measurement system developed by Tuliu is based on the GPS positioning and base station positioning functions of the mobile phone. You can get the real-time area, perimeter, and altitude by walking around the land.

(5) ERP management system

The ERP management system of Tuliu Service Center realizes all-round informatization supervision of land, customer sources and land transaction processes, forming a closed loop of transactions based on buyer-service center-landlord in the sense of risk control, and establishes a credible, reliable, convenient and stable trading platform between land owners and buyers across the country

(6) Tuliu Financial Trading Center

Launched “Golden Landlord” and “Golden Principal”, using the combined model of big data + manual services to match land and demand users faster and more accurately, making it easier to find land. Land transfer services are all online, and customers can still stay at home, grasp all aspects of land information and complete land transfer. In addition, the financial transaction center carries out the custody of land transfer transaction funds, and the transfer fund platform and the bank are jointly supervised, and the transaction funds are also safer.

(7) Financial service system

The rural financial service system, based on the accumulation of more than 10 years of land industry and land transaction data, Tuliu’s financial service was launched at the end of 2015. Tuliu uses land transfer data, land right confirmation data, etc. as the basis for crediting financial institutions, and cooperates with local governments, banks, and state-owned insurance companies to provide land management rights mortgage loans, land management rights batch credits, land rent installment mortgages, land transfer big data inclusive finance, supply chain finance, housing consumption loans and housing property rights financing, rural revitalization equity financing and other financial services, jointly solve the problem of rural financing, and provide farmers and new agricultural operators with low-cost, high-efficiency and more convenient financing channels to solve the last mile problem of rural financial supply-side reform.

(8) New farmers training

The rural revitalization talent training service system of Tuliu College was established on August 17, 2012. It is a learning platform and a maker acceleration platform for Tuliu. Through the provision of professional training and guidance, Tuliu Academy is committed to creating new positions and new professional talents such as property trading brokers, land trasnfer brokers, financial brokers, etc., to cultivate new types of “professional farmers” that meet the requirements of the new era, and help increase the employment rate in rural areas and the overall income of farmers. At present, Tuliu Academy has held 77 relevant training sessions, with a total of 243 sessions (excluding online lectures), and a total of more than 70,000 people participated in the training. Most of the brokers have established Tuliu land transfer services center in 1,156 regions across the country.

5. Impact analysis

More than ten years of application and practice have shown that the integrated service platform for rural land transfer of Tuliu uses digital methods to broaden the channels of farmers’ information sources, greatly reduce the costs of farmers and agricultural investors in the process of land transfer, and increase the enthusiasm of both parties in the transfer, and promoted the standardized development of the land transfer and rural property rights transaction industries, promote the revitalization of rural resources and assets, activated the land, capital and other elements of agricultural development, and provide strong support for the modernization of agricultural and rural development.

The first is to bring high-quality merchants to the countryside and provide employment opportunities for farmers. After eleven years of accumulation, Tuliu has a daily active user capacity of 620,000 person-times and has a large number of precise land customers. Using the “Internet + land transfer” approach, Tuliu can bring high-quality merchants to the rural land transfer market. At the same time, Tuliu partners and land brokers have provided entrepreneurial opportunities and jobs for rural areas. The partners and land brokers of Tuliu have been trained to improve the overall work level of the land transfer service industry.

The second is to revitalize agricultural land, collective operating construction land, and homesteads in rural areas. Land is the core resource for rural revitalization, and the vital use of rural land stock can alleviate the contradiction in rural land use. Tuliu conducts digital operations on land resources, revitalizes rural agricultural land, collectively-operated construction land, and homesteads, improves the efficiency of rural land use, and promotes large-scale agricultural operations.

The third is to solve the problem of “money” in rural development. On the one hand, large-scale agricultural investment projects are introduced by land investment, attracting a large number of enterprises and investment institutions to invest in rural areas, and promote industrial and commercial capital, technology and talents to “down to the countryside.” On the other hand, it promotes financial “running water” to the countryside, develops land management rights mortgage loans, technology finance and other services, provides financing channels for farmers and large planters, and provides financial support for farmers’ daily life and production.

6. Publicity and Reporting

In rural areas, Tuliu uses ground pushes, wall advertisements, and rural life service scenes like Yanzidaojia to actively promote and publicize, so that farmers can understand land transfer and are happy to carry out land transfer. At the same time, it carried out training on land transfer and rural property rights transactions in rural areas, and in-depth analysis of rural property rights transfer and transaction related policies, the status of the rural property rights transfer and transaction market, and the construction and operation of the rural property rights transaction market, and explained in detail how rural property rights businesses were developed and traded; how to fill in the text information, the actual operation of agricultural project bidding and government procurement, the actual operation of historical transaction filing, the actual operation of the pre-listing of the intention transfer project, how to use the Tuliu platform system to externally list information, and how to carry out the collection and investigation of rural property rights transfer information, etc., standardize the transaction process of land transfer and rural property rights.

The “Internet + Land Transfer” model of Tuliu has been receiving social media attention since its release. Sina News, People’s Daily, Farmers’ Daily, CCTV 7 and CCTV.com have repeatedly reported and promoted Tuliu. On January 10, 2021, Wu Yong, the chairman of Tuliu Group, was listed as a figure in the national rural revitalization. CCTV17 Agricultural and Rural Channel reported on the large-scale report, with the Fengcheng Rural Property Rights Exchange Center as the background, see how Tuliu promotes farmers’ continuous income increase. On January 22, CCTV2’s “Economy 30 Minutes” column reported the entire issue of how the Rural Property Exchange Center revitalized land assets and realized land production. Tuliu was praised by CCTV reports twice within a month, and its influence expanded rapidly.

The list of relevant media reports is as follows:

The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that it is necessary to “implement the rural revitalization strategy.” At present, it is necessary to use the rural revitalization strategy to further deepen the reform of the rural collective property rights system, improve the agricultural support and protection system, and improve the agricultural socialized service system. Construct a modern agricultural industrial system, production system and management system, realize the organic connection between small farmers and modern agricultural development, support and encourage farmers to find employment and entrepreneurship, and effectively broaden the channels for farmers to increase their income. Therefore, only through measures such as cultivating new agricultural business entities, encouraging large-scale operations, and establishing a professional farmer system to further deepen rural land reform, and through accelerating the cultivation of large growers, family farms, leading enterprises, cooperatives, and agricultural industrialization consortiums and other business entities, Encourage land transfer, land shareholding, etc., promote large-scale planting, standardized production, industrialized management, form a new type of agriculture, and truly promote the development of agricultural modernization, in order to increase farmers’ income and improve farmers’ living standards.

The business innovation of Tuliu is based on the foundation of rural reforms-with rural land reform as the starting point, it solves the problems of asymmetry and low efficiency of land transfer information, and fundamentally dredges the obstacles on the road to rural reforms. The digital village overall service platform built by Tuliu covers comprehensive land transfer services, land price checking systems, land valuation systems, land multi-function measurement systems, service center ERP management systems, rural financial services, new farmers training services, etc. Dimensional agricultural and rural big data has played a huge role in the matching of land transfer information, the upgrade of the entire agricultural industry chain, the formulation of technical standards, the supervision of agricultural product quality and safety, trend analysis, value discovery and forecasting and early warning, and government regulatory decision-making.

Website display content: Summary

With Internet land transfer as the core, we will lead industrial and commercial capital, technology and talents down to the countryside, revitalize rural resources and assets, and promote moderate-scale operation of agricultural production. As of March 2021, Tuliu has listed 393 million hectares of land and 309 million hectares of overseas listed land, with a total transaction of 92 million hectares.

Challenge/problem

The Chinese government has successively introduced policies and regulations to encourage farmers to transfer land and stabilize grain production through large-scale operations. Tuliu, founded by Mr. Wu Yong, has created an Internet platform for land transfer, promoted moderate-scale operations, improved grain production capacity, and activated the three elements of rural “people, land, money” digitally.

Operation mechanism: first, display various types of land information in rural areas, provide comprehensive services such as industry information, online valuation, break through geographical restrictions, and attract new agricultural business entities to transfer land on the platform; second, through the transfer of land, introduce agricultural investment projects to promote agriculture large-scale operation; third is to create new employment opportunities through the introduction of industries through land transfer + industry; fourth is to set up offline service centers, develop land brokers, provide standardized land transfer services, and protect the rights and interests of farmers and merchants.

On the government side: the establishment of joint ventures, exclusive entrusted operation services, government purchase services and other methods to carry out government-enterprise cooperation, establish a rural property rights trading platform, and directly import the massive land source data and transaction data of Tuliu to promote the construction of a rural property rights trading market system.

Result

As of the end of March 2021, Tuliu has listed 393 million hectares of land, with a transaction of 92 million hectares, offline service centers covering 1,156 districts and counties, government-enterprise cooperation covering 597 districts and counties, and 620,000 people visit Tuliu.com every day finding land, more than 30,000 land brokers take root in villages and towns to serve customers. In addition, the area of overseas listed land is 309 million hectares.

According to data analysis, ordinary farmers accounted for 46% of the land transferees, and 72% of the new agricultural business entities (including large agricultural farmers, rural cooperatives, agricultural enterprises, etc.) of the land transferees accounted for 72% of the land transferred. It is transferred from the hands of ordinary farmers to the hands of new agricultural business entities.

Lessons / Promotion Possibilities

Understand policy trends. In-depth understanding of agricultural production and planting issues and land policies faced by countries and regions, grasp the general direction and trend of agricultural development, and ensure that development plans and action plans do not run counter to policies and markets.
Protect the rights and interests of farmers. Guidance and services in the process of land transfer must be professional and standardized to protect the rights and interests of farmers as well as the rights and interests of the inflow party.
Innovate development model. Agricultural modernization is a trend, and we should keep pace with the times and explore new development models to adapt to the development of modern agriculture.

Next Step

Build a complete digital village overall solution, focusing on the integration and application of agricultural and rural data, and on the basis of the 12-year land transfer data of Tuliu, superimpose satellite remote sensing data, rural consumption data, agricultural product production and sales data, etc., and construct a comprehensive agricultural and rural big data “one map”, provide scientific and data services for financial institutions to develop agricultural credit, empower agricultural and rural development, and contribute to global food security.

Originally published at https://www.tlw.com.

How do We Develop into a Leading Land Asset Keeper?

Written by tlwdotcom-The Land World