Land expropriation, top reason for Chinese farmers' petitions

Land expropriation is the most frequent subject of petitions made by Chinese farmers, with complaints about village finances and environmental pollution coming second and third, a senior agriculture official said in Beijing on Tuesday.

Chen Xiwen, director of the office of the central leading group on rural work, said that government officials "should not turn a deaf ear to farmers' requests".

"Neither should government officials brush aside farmers' petitions claiming that they are trivial," he said at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council.

Chen urged governments at various levels to get acquainted with farmers' requests and endeavor to have their problems resolved.

He warned that if governments failed to address farmers' issues in a timely and efficient manner, a single petition could lead to "a mass incident" involving public protests or even a riot.

The number of "mass incidents" attributed to Chinese farmers declined last year and the numbers of those who died in such incidents or were arrested were also down, Chen said, without revealing specifics.

But chief judge Xiao Yang told a national judicial meeting earlier this month that "mass incidents" should be given additional attention because they have become a conspicuous problem that disturbs social stability.

The Ministry of Public Security said that 87,000 mass incidents were reported in 2005, up 6.6 percent on 2004 and 50 percent on 2003.

Although the central government has repeatedly underlined the significance of protecting arable land, some farmers are still losing farm land and not being sufficiently compensated.

Official figures reveal that nearly 200,000 hectares of rural land are taken from farmers every year for industrial purposes. More than 65 percent of "massive incidents" in rural areas are attributed to land expropriation.

Sources with the Ministry of Land and Resources said that most of the petitions over land expropriation were triggered by compensation issues.

Citing a central government document issued in 2004, Chen said that compensation for farmers who lose their farmland must be increased and that local governments are also responsible for providing vocational training and re-employment services.

According to the document, the government will expand the social security insurance, which now mainly covers the urban population, to rural areas.

"All of these measures are gradually being implemented," Chen said.

To attract foreign investment, a lot of farmlands were expropriated in the past few years and used to build factories. Some local governments even gave companies land for free.

The central government issued clear-cut regulations at the end of last year, demanding that all land previously taken for industrial purposes be sold at auction to prevent local governments from transferring land-use rights at low or nil cost, Chen said.

Local governments are also required to record and justify expenditure of revenue from the transfer of land-use rights. "Such revenues must first be used for land loss compensation, training and re-employment services," Chen said.

As for complaints about environmental pollution, the director said that rural development should not sacrifice the environment for economic prosperity.

Chen did not discuss petitions about village finances. But some village leaders have been blamed for embezzling government farming equipment subsidies.

In a recent tour to the countryside of northeast China's Jilin Province, President Hu Jintao's first question to local farmers was "Did you receive the government subsidy?"

Source: Xinhua