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China changing policy to stop rural land seizures+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BEIJING, March 8_(Kyodo) _ The Chinese Communist Party is working on new rules to stop local governments from seizing farmland for development, leaving farmers with no livelihood, a Chinese official said Wednesday.
Since the land seizure issue was mentioned at the third session of the party's 16th congress last October, party leaders have been formulating a system that would require more government compensation for land taken for public use and a market mechanism to pay for land taken for industry, said Du Ying, vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission.
"The phenomenon of hurting farmers' rights by taking their land away at low prices definitely exists," Du said at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual National People's Congress session.
"It shows that the current farmland expropriation regulations cannot fit the needs of our times now and must be reformed," he said.
About 133,000 hectares of land are taken out of farming every year, leaving 1 million farmers without land, vice minister of agriculture Yin Chengjie said at the press conference. About 800 million Chinese are classified as farmers, though as many as a quarter do not actually farm.
Chinese farmers say that land grabs, often before their leases expire, leave them with too little to earn money from farming. Some have nothing but their yards to plant or raise animals. Many go to cities to make 700 yuan (about $87) per month in wage labor.
Local governments sell the land to developers of high-rise housing or factory-commercial use. Farmers say they do not get compensated fairly despite laws that discourage farmland transfers and require fair compensation.
"Only if we work outside jobs do we have money," said Zhang Yu, 43, a farmer near the Hebei Province mountain city of Chengde. His family of four grazes three sheep while growing corn and almond trees on 0.06 hectare of land.
Government departments have already taken measures to stop land from going out of agricultural use, pay fair compensation when it is transferred and help landless farmers find work in industry or service, Yin said. Landless farmers should also get a minimum social welfare package from the government, he said.
"We don't want farmers to lose their livelihoods or lower their living standards because farmland has been occupied," Yin said.
On Sunday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged a 42.2 billion yuan budget increase for farm aid in 2006.
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