The newly amended agricultural law devotes a whole chapter to the protection of farmers' rights, but the legislation has been all but ignored.
The officials and experts engaged in heated debate about how to safeguard the rights of farmers seem to care little about the law.
Their indifference is a clear sign that such promises - even when they become law - have little credibility these days.
The way the law is written is impressive. In chapter nine, farmers are given the right to refuse to pay fees and penalties illegally imposed by local officials. Grassroots governments are also banned from collecting money from farmers for local projects or from taking over farmers' land without proper compensation.
However, experts doubt that the law has had any effect because only a few clauses come with penalties attached - meaning most of the rules aimed at protecting the rights of farmers are toothless.
Farmers would prefer to petition higher levels of government instead of filing a lawsuit against local cadres because the costs were too high, said Xu Yong, of the Central China Normal University's rural research institute.