Han Jun, Development Research Center of the State Council Research Report No.081, 2005

I. General Situation of Land-Lost Farmers

1. Number of land-lost farmers

Apart from the large and medium-scale infrastructure construction, China’s non-agricultural construction that occupies cultivated land mainly concentrates on the suburban areas and economically developed areas where there are more people but less cultivated land. In these areas, per capita cultivated land is less than 0.7 mu. In 2003, the State Statistics Bureau conducted an overall survey on farmers who lost land. The survey targets farmers whose per capita cultivated land is less than 0.3 mu. A total of 2,942 households were surveyed. The results of the survey show 43 percent of the households have completely lost their cultivated land. The 2,942 households involve a total population of 12,170, of which 7,187 are laborers. Each household has, on average, 4.14 people and 2.44 laborers. The original cultivated land is 13,740.15 mu, making an average of 4.67 mu per household and 1.13 mu per capita. From 2000 to present, a total of 9,400.15 mu of cultivated land of these farmers have been occupies for other uses, with an average of 3.2 mu per household. The farmers have now 4,340 mu of land, making an average of 1.48 mu per household and 0.36 mu per person. Among them, 442 households, or 15 percent, under the survey have a cultivated land of above 0.3 mu. And 1,237 households, or about 42 percent, have per capita cultivated land of less than 0.3 mu. About 43 percent, or 1,263 households in total, have completely lost their cultivated land. Currently, China’s non-agriculture construction occupies between 2.5 million to three million mu of land every year. If calculating on one mu per person, it means that between 2.5 million and three million farmers lose their cultivated land every year. Between 1987 and 2001, non-agriculture construction occupied a total of 33.95 million mu of land nationwide. Most researchers estimate that at least 34 million farmers have completely or partly lost their farmland.

The amount of land occupied by non-agriculture construction mentioned here refers to the legal use of the cultivated land. It does not include the cultivated land illegally occupied. In order to protect cultivated land, the central government proposed to implement most strict protection system for cultivated land. To ensure the implementation of the strategy, China strictly implemented the examination and approval system for agriculture land turning into non-agriculture land. Local governments, for the sake of the economic development, adopt many flexible ways for rampant land requisition while neglecting government regulations. According to satellite sensing data, the amount of occupied land in violation of government regulations generally accounts for 20 percent to 30 percent of the total land occupancy. Many experts estimate that current amount of land-lost or partially land-lost farmers may reach as high as 40 to 50 million if the violated land occupancy in violation of government regulations is calculated. China plans to occupy 18.50 million mu of land for non-agriculture construction between 2000 and 2010, 54.50 million mu of land for non-agriculture construction between 2000 and 2030. If the planned index is broken up and land-use violation is out of control, the number of land-lost farmers will increase significantly.

2. Land-lost farmers mainly concentrate in the suburbs of large and medium-sized cities. In some economically developed areas, a large number of farmers will lose their land

During the recent 20 years, Shanghai has occupied and used about 1.44 million mu of land. Of the total, most is requisitioned land. The proportion of requisitioned land and rented land is about 7 to 3. Currently, the number of land-lost farmers in Shanghai has exceeded one million. Since 1993, Beijing has seen a total of 330,000 farmers lose their land. During the three years between 2000 and 2002, 208,300 mu of land were requisitioned in Wuxi of Jiangsu Province, causing 367,600 farmers from 113,900 households to lose their lands. In Shaoxing County of Zhejiang Province, the accumulated number of farmers with their lands requisitioned reached 172,000, accounting for 28.2 percent of the rural population.

II. The Employment and Living Situation of Land-Lost Farmers

1. During the planned economy period, the principle of "Whoever requisitions land should be responsible for the arrangement of farmers" was practiced for land-lost farmers. It required enterprises that requisition lands to arrange jobs for the land-lost farmers. However, a large portion of the arranged laborers is actually in the state of unemployment

The municipal government of Shanghai is responsible for the arrangement of jobs for the land-lost laborers under the age of 45. By the end of the first quarter of 2002, the city has arranged jobs for an accumulated number of more than 450,000 land-lost laborers. By the end of 2001, the number of people "changing from rural to non-rural registration" because of land requisition in the suburban areas of Beijing reached 205,000. Among them, 114,000 people were of working age and 53,000 people were given jobs, accounting for 46.49 percent. Since the mid-1990s, enterprises have laid off their staff to streamline the surplus laborers. Because the education background and technology level of these land-lost farmers were relatively low, they became the first to be affected by the practice of layoffs. Currently, among the arranged land-lost laborers, nearly 30 percent of them are actually in the state of unemployment. At the Taiping Village, Lugouqiao Township, Fengtai District of Beijing, more than 1,100 laborers from three production teams were arranged jobs in 1993 when their land was requisitioned. Now, apart from a small number of people who are working in the environment and hygiene, public transportation and house administration departments, more than 90 percent of those who got the jobs are unemployed.

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