BEIJING -- China on Wednesday issued a guideline outlining arrangements for pilot work to extend rural land contracts by an additional 30 years upon the expiration of the second-round contracts.

The document, jointly issued by the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, comprises 15 specific measures with a mandate to strengthen the protection of farmers' contractual land rights and interests, enhance the management of rural land contracting, and reinforce organization work and leadership, among others.

The document emphasizes the unchanged policies of unwaveringly upholding the collective ownership of rural land and the farmer household land contracting and operating system, ensuring the principal position of farmers and the stability of rural society.

To carry out the rural land contracts extension pilot work effectively, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and other competent authorities have since 2020 guided various provinces in gradually expanding the scope of the pilot program. This year, province-wide trials are expected to be conducted across 29 provincial-level regions.

Under China's household contract responsibility system, all rural land is owned by rural collectives, which allocate contract rights for parcels of farmland to eligible households. The tenure of contract rights was 15 years in the 1980s and renewed by another 30 years for the second-round contracts in the 1990s. The expiration of second-round contracts is expected to enter a peak period from 2026 to 2028.