Following a series of actions by farmers around the country to reclaim farmland that had been taken over by local officials, the government has begun to crack down. Zheng Xinli, deputy director of the Research Institute of the Communist Party, stated that private ownership of land means that landlords own the land “while peasants were impoverished and lost everything if they lost their land.” Zheng said that it is a historic lesson:
…Currently, farmers have a 30-year land contract, officially known as the first-round contract. Upon completion of the first round, they can extend their contracts for another 30 years, Zheng said. Government policy allows farmers to transfer their land and thus allow experienced farmers manage a larger area of cultivated land, to increase farming efficiency. Farmers who have let out their land under this kind of arrangement have turned to work in the industrial and tertiary sectors.
The Report proposes the establishment of markets for transfer of land management rights among farmers. It means that farmers not only have the rights to use and manage farmland, but also they would have the rights of transferring the rights to use and manage the land, Zheng noted. [Full Text]
