Policies to protect villagers' interests overdue

THE ANNUAL CENTRAL RURAL WORK CONFERENCE, held on Thursday and Friday in Beijing, is reported to have discussed the issue of compensation for villagers when their arable land is requisitioned. Beijing News says it hopes that a new policy will protect farmers' rights and end the chaos caused by local officials and realty developers requisitioning arable land at low cost, says an editorial on Beijing News:

The requisitioning of arable land has caused a lot of conflicts, many of them bloody, in rural regions because local officials and realty developers tend to give very low compensation to farmers.

As early as 2011, the central authorities promised to make the compensation fair. For four years, the job was suspended because there was no specific policy about the issue from the top. Even though there were standards, farmers had no say since various levels of authorities decided the price unilaterally without ever consulting with villagers.