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新浪首页 > 新浪教育 > Concern over farmland misuse

Concern over farmland misuse
http://www.sina.com.cn 2004/05/14 11:20  Shanghai Daily

  Top government officials in Qufu City, eastern Shandong Province, are facing an imminent threat - untamed shrinkage of farmland under their jurisdiction that could lead to punishment as severe as their unseating.

  To save its farmland from being abandoned or eaten up by non-farming use, Shandong Province has launched a bottom-line program, stipulating a minimum level of farmland for each of its cities and counties, which accordingly apportion a quota to their townships.

  "The minimum level should by no means be broken and wherever a violation occurs, the chief administrative official will be punished," said Zhang Shuping, secretary of the city committee of the Communist Party of China.

  Qin Qingwu, an economist with the Shandong Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, said that shrinking farmland is an unavoidable byproduct of industrialization and urbanization.

  The drop of grain price in the past years, which dampened farmers' enthusiasm for grain growing, should also be blamed for the extensive abandonment of farmland.

  Statistics from the Ministry of Land and Resources showed that last year alone the country lost 2.53 million hectares of farmland to non-farming use.

  If the trend is not halted and farmland keeps dropping at such a rate or even higher, experts warned, China's farmland, which is now at about 95.6 million hectares, would all but disappear within 50 years.

  Out of concern over grain safety, the Chinese government listed protection of farmland at the top of its agenda last year.

  The Central Committee of the CPC last October decided that the nation would adopt the "strictest" system for farmland protection.

  The conversion of farmland for non-farming use was made the focus of land-use supervision since last year.

  The Ministry of Land and Resources last year launched probes into five major violation cases involving farmland confiscation, including two in Shandong.

  Two officials involved in a case in Qihe County were punished with demotion or disciplinary warning for their role in the decision to illegally concede farmland to a golf course.

  In another case in Qingdao City, two officials arrested for bribery in a farmland transaction lost their official post and Party membership.

  A major grain producer in China, Shandong once boasted 8 million hectares of farmland. But the province has suffered farmland shrinkage for consecutive years as a result of the expansion of non-farming use of land.

  Stats from the provincial department of land resources showed that the province last year had some 6.4 million hectares of farmland, down 1.8 million hectares from the figure eight years ago.

  With a population of more than 90 million, Shandong reports an annual grain consumption of 40 billion kilograms. That means, according to statistics, the province should have about 6.7 million hectares of farmland reserved for grain growing to feed its population.

  (Xinhua)




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