Protecting farmers' rights

In a substantial step toward better protecting farmers' rights and interests, the State Council on Wednesday passed a draft law amendment revising the rules on compensation for land expropriation.

Although no more details have so far been disclosed, the draft, which is yet to be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for review, is expected to raise sharply compensation to targeted farmers.

If approved by the national legislature, the draft will remove obstacles for an earlier promulgation of a more concrete and pro-farmers State Council regulation on the requisition of collectively owned rural land.

The number of "mass incidents" related to the government-backed expropriation of farmers' land has been on the increase in recent years in the context of the accelerated urbanization. That is partly because of farmers' reluctance to make concessions on the grounds that the compensation offer is usually much lower than the prices of neighboring construction land.

Current compensation for land to be expropriated is based on the revenues it can produce in the manner of its previous utilization. The practice with legal limits has caused farmers to feel that they suffer heavy losses given that the expropriated land is usually used for more expensive construction projects.

At a news conference after the closing of the Fifth Session of the 11th National People's Congress in March, Premier Wen Jiabao vowed to work out a regulation on the compensation for rural land expropriation, saying it would be "one of the major concrete businesses his government will do before the end of its tenure (due next March)", in a bid to really protect farmers' rights over their contracted land.

In a report to the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, former Party leader Hu Jintao also promised to reform the country's land expropriation system to increase farmers' share of the gains in land value.

The draft amendment marks a positive step in this direction. If effectively enforced, it will help eliminate a source of tensions between farmers and local governments in land requisition.

Aside from distributing to farmers a bigger share of gains in increased land revenues, there is more the government can do, for example, ensuring farmers enjoy a decisive say in the transaction of their collectively owned land.