Household Responsibility System
Replacing collective farming, this system allowed farming households to lease land from the state and sell surplus produce on the open market, dramatically increasing agricultural productivity.
Origins in Xiaogang Village
The Household Responsibility System effectively began not as a top-down policy but as a desperate act of self-preservation by 18 farmers in Xiaogang Village, Fengyang County, Anhui Province in November 1978. Facing starvation after years of collective farming, they secretly signed a contract in red fingerprints to divide commune land among individual households and commit to meeting state quotas from private production — with the understanding that if arrested, the community would care for their children. Their harvest the following year exceeded the previous five combined.
National Adoption
Knowledge of the Xiaogang experiment spread, and similar arrangements emerged spontaneously in other areas. Deng Xiaoping cautiously endorsed local experiments, and the system was formally legitimized through a series of "No. 1 Documents" issued from 1982 onward. By 1984 virtually all of China's agricultural land had been distributed to households under long-term use contracts. Collective farming had been effectively dismantled — though technically land remained state-owned — and the people's commune system was abolished.
Impact
The results were dramatic. Agricultural output rose sharply: grain production increased from 305 million tons in 1978 to 407 million tons by 1984. Rural incomes grew substantially. The system's success also released a large surplus labor force that would migrate to coastal factories and construction sites, providing the manpower for China's subsequent industrial boom. The Xiaogang farmers are celebrated in China today as pioneers of reform.
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