Idle rural land to be freed up for sale in Peoples Republic of China

But there are fears that the new law that allows the sale of non-cultivated land could hurt China's farmers in the long run

BEIJING - Come March, China's ongoing rural reforms will be given a boost with the implementation of a landmark law that is expected to accelerate the sale of millions of hectares of idle farm land nationwide.

The law, passed by the Chinese parliament this year, allows non-cultivated or barren land in the countryside to be sold to the highest bidder.

However, fertile farmland remains off-limits to developers under the Rural Land Contract Law as the Beijing authorities are concerned about the loss of fertile farmland to rampant urban and industrial development.

Villages in many parts of prosperous southern China have been selling non-productive rural land since the late 1980s.

Under the legislation, as long as two-thirds of the villagers - who collectively have 'usage rights' to agricultural land - give the nod, plots of non-cultivated farmland in their community can be converted for other uses.

The transfer of a fair portion of an estimated 41 million ha of land could be accelerated after the law comes into effect next year, experts told The Straits Times.

Not all of the uncultivated land is likely to be sold as some will not be worth investing in.

After all, they say, the authorities have turned a blind eye to the shady sales of productive farmland that have been going on for years in the prosperous southern provinces.

Places like Hangzhou In Zhejiang, Anyang in Henan and Wuhu in Anhui are also experimenting with full-scale land reform.

However, the authorities are concerned that such sales might affect the livelihood of farmers and the country's ability to feed itself in the long run.

Professor Tang Zhong, chairman of the Department of Rural Economics at the Renmin University of China, said the debate on whether cultivated farmland should be allowed to be sold on the open market has been raging for nearly a decade.

According to Professor Zhou Cheng, also of Renmin University, the Chinese government is caught in a dilemma.

On one hand, it seeks to promote the sale of land usage rights, which is welcomed by the peasants.

On the other hand, it has to ensure the availability of cropland for tillage, he explained.

In fact, the government is working towards a target of having 1/15th of a ha of productive farmland for each citizen by the year 2030.

Currently, an estimated 86 million ha of agricultural land in China is contracted to some 200 million farming families, following the failure of the commune system which started in the late 1950s.

The 'family responsibility' arrangement worked well in the 1980s until prices plummeted.

That drove tens of thousands of farmers to the cities in search of better-paying manual jobs.

Some experts here say allowing for the sale of productive farmland to businesses will provide jobs at the village townships and thus help stem the flow of rural workers to the big cities.

But Prof Zhou disagrees: 'Factories these days are no longer labour-intensive. Now, they are more capital- and technology-intensive.'

In fact, the government is working towards a target of having 1/15th of a ha of productive farmland for each citizen by the year 2030.

1 hectare (ha) = 2.47 acres (approximately)

1/15 ha = 0.165 acres

Hmmmmm... That's quite a bit less than 40 acres and a mule.

Thanks for this Article. China is finding out more and more that the best thing the Central planners can do, is to leave people to figure things out for themselves. The Chinese rural land dweller, has always had an economically poor, but yet happily sustainable existence. Even Kubilai Khan once remarked that they could live quite nicely on a small piece of land. Not much money in the proposition, but at least a small family housed and fed itself.

However, China does have plans to Urbanize it's productive center, with a huge long range plan. The Plans call for 3 large new Metropolitan cities, and 7 Bands that extend out from them and eventually overlap. Most of this plan seems to follow someof the theories of Human Geography that I studies in college.

In the Free world these areas are generally classed into what are Capital Cites, and then A, B, or C diminishing sized cities. They are classed by population, and equally important, the quantity and variety of the Good and services availlable, and the distances people were willing to travel to obtain the services or goods of each.

It appears though, that instead of allowing each of these areas to grow "naturally", they are going to take direct control from the start. This is going to be an interesting experiment. I think it is going to be tough, because technology changes quickly, and sometimes sends whole business down the tubes. Will these urbanized areas, be able to respond quickly enough, or be convertible to technologies fast enough to keep up with changes?

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