WillAgri
Eager to improve the living standards of small-scale farmers – their income is less than half of that in the city – the Chinese government decided to allow villages to sell 3.3 million hectares of collective farming land to manufacturers who will use it to build workshops and factories. The proceeds from these sales would be kept by the villagers. This industrial land only represents 0.5% of cultivated land, but its total value is estimated at 10.3 trillion renminbi (Rmb), whilst China’s farming production is only 6.5 trillion renminbi! The operation has made some villagers rich. In the Deqing region, the proceeds from sales are distributed to villagers in the form of shares. Since the operation started in 2015, the shares held by some villages have skyrocketed, increasing in value from 800 Rmb to 20,000 Rmb in just five years! But many more villagers are unhappy. Villagers from rural communities in Dongheng haven’t received a penny from the often-corrupt village leaders, who claim to have invested the proceeds of sales and distributed shares to the villagers instead – shares which they cannot cash out…
Source: ft.com