Beijing moves to stop land being taken from farmers
The mainland will limit the power of local governments to take land from farmers for commercial use in an attempt to quell widespread discontent over forcible land seizures.
How to narrow the scope of land requisitions and limit them to public facilities topped the agenda of the third plenary session of the Communist Party's elite Central Committee, which closed on Sunday, top rural policymaker Chen Xiwen says.
Mr Chen was quoted by mainland magazine Caijing as saying the government was also considering whether to allow rural collective bodies, which are owners of rural land, to negotiate commercial leases approved by government.
'The crux [of the rural reform discussed in the plenary session] is to narrow the scope of land requisitions and limit them for public use,' he said. 'For construction projects approved by the central government, rural collectives can retain their ownership and sell the land-use right on the market. The price can be negotiated by farmer collectives and land users.'
Rural land is owned by vague bodies known as collectives, a term that usually refers to rural brigades or village committees. Under the existing law, government requisition is needed before rural land can be reclassified for urban construction.
That means local governments monopolise the entire process - from taking over land from farmers to leasing the land to developers.
Rural land seizures and the expansion of cities have become major sources of income for local governments - which usually pay farmers low prices for land and then lease it to urban developers at a high price.
Such practices have given rise to many riots and protests by landless farmers. The Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend reported yesterday that the Land and Resources Ministry received hundreds of thousands of complaints from farmers every year.
Riots related to land disputes had become more common, with some involving more than 10,000 participants, it said.
Li Ping, the Beijing representative of the Rural Development Institute, a US group that campaigns for land reform, said he believed the government would not take the radical step of banning government land requisitions for commercial use but might gradually move towards that goal.
Progressing 'from the present situation towards the final destination of limiting land requisition to only public use is going to be a long process', he said yesterday.
The government has yet to release the rural-policy blueprint discussed at the plenary session. Rumours are rife about Central Committee disagreements over extending land contracts for another 70 years and relaxing lease conditions on rural residential land. The communique issued after the plenum failed to indicate any major change in land policies.
Mr Chen said many local authorities had forced farmers to lease land to agricultural enterprises in exchange for shares in the enterprises. He said the central government had wanted to encourage farmers to form agricultural enterprises within their villages and become shareholders, instead of leasing land to outsiders.
