Encroachment: China's new rural land transfer scheme triggers fear

The Ministry of Agriculture announced this week it will roll out a pilot scheme to "standardize" the transfer of rural property rights, as well as "strengthening supervision and management" over the use of rural land in China, which is typically leased to farmers on 30-year "household responsibility" contracts, with the ownership remaining with the government, reports Radio Free Asia.

The move comes after the administration of supreme party leader Xi Jinping made it easier in 2016 for farmers to be bought out of household responsibility leases, to encourage farmers to relocate to urban areas to reduce rural poverty.

China declared in November 2020 that it had eliminated extreme poverty, with analysts attributing the change in statistics to the mass relocation of younger migrant workers to cities, under strong official encouragement.

Under the new land rules, officials are expected to "give full play to government leadership" via controversial "agricultural management" enforcement officials, who critics fear will send the country back to Mao-era collective farming and micromanagement of people's daily lives.

Analysts and farmers told the news portal that the main point of the additional controls is the tightening of state control over the supply of grain and to facilitate the transfer of rural land away from farmers if needed.