CHINA> National
China boosts land transfers to ensure better life for farmers
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-12-16 16:19

According to Zhang Changhe, Party secretary of Huaming township, from the exchange 12 villages gained 243 ha of land that was formerly useless, having been neither arable nor residential land.

A survey showed that 95.3 percent of the villagers were satisfied with the exchange.

"I exchanged an earthen house for a 66-square-meter apartment," said Zhao Jiagui from Zhaozhuang village. "I didn't expect to be so lucky."

Like Tianjin, other regions -- including the northeastern Heilongjiang Province, the eastern Anhui Province and the southern Guangdong Province -- had trial land use transfers ahead of the CPC policy this past October.

"This breakthrough ... meets the needs of industrialization and urbanization at the current stage," said Xu Xianglin, an economics professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.

In the past, farmland was collectively owned and leased to farmers under long-term contracts. But with rapid economic development, more farmers left their land to work in cities.

Ministry of Agriculture statistics show that there are about 126 million such migrant workers. Some temporarily entrusted or lent their land to others, but without the proper policies, their rights were at risk.

"Regulating land use transfers with the policy helps the sustainable development of agriculture in China," said Dai Guopei, a 40-year-old farmer in Jiangxi. Through the policy, he contracted 93.3 ha of land, which brings him an annual profit of some 600,000 to 700,000 yuan.

Yin Xiaojian, research fellow with the Research Institute of Rural Economy under the Jiangxi Province Academy of Social Sciences, said the policy was a must for agricultural modernization, as long as some conditions were met.

"The function of the land, the farmer's rights and the characteristics of collectively owned land shouldn't be changed," he said.

There are wide concerns of farmland being converted to other uses after transfers. Such concerns have already become reality in some places.

In Beijing, a mountainous village in Pinggu district is soon to auction more than 600 hectares of its land for tourism development. The auctioneer advertises it as the "first auction of land transfer".

According to report of the Beijing News, some 40 households in the Liangzhuangzi village have voted in favor of the auction. The plot of land includes 10 percent arable land and 90 percent wasteland.