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.
家庭联产承包责任制
家庭联产承包责任制，又称“大包干”，是由农户以家庭为单位同集体经济组织签订承包合同，主要生产资料仍归集体所有，分配方面实行按劳分配原则，生产经营活动中集体和家庭有分有合。家庭联产承包责任制是20世纪80年代初期中国大陆农村推行的一项重要改革，是农村土地制度的重要转折和农村经济体制改革的产物。更为重要的是，这一制度是中国农民的伟大创造，以“包产到户”为标志的农村改革拉开了中国对内改革的大幕。
安徽省凤阳县梨园公社小岗村是较早冲破旧体制限制，自发采取“包干到户”的地区。1978年11月，小岗村18位农民签下《生死状》，将村内土地分开承包，实行“分田到户，自负盈亏”，开创了家庭联产承包责任制的先河。四川等其他一些省份也采取了“包产到组”等类似做法，开启了中国农村改革的进程。
1982年1月，中共中央印发《全国农村工作会议纪要》，第一次肯定“包产到户、包干到户”都是社会主义集体经济的责任制。此后，家庭联产承包责任制逐步在全国推开。中国农村的面貌由此发生了翻天覆地的变化。
中国农村普遍实行家庭联产承包责任制后，既发挥了集体统一经营的优越性，又调动了农民个人生产的积极性，既能适应分散经营的小规模经营，也能适应相对集中的适度规模经营，促进了劳动生产率的提高和农村经济的全面发展，提高了广大农民的生活水平。实践证明，家庭联产承包责任制是适应中国农业特点、农村生产力发展水平和管理水平的一种较好的经济形式。
