Vegetable Fields Looted by Passersby in Shenzhen Landslide Village, Vegetable Farmers Cry and Plead to No Avail

Recently, about 50 passersby at the entrance of Hong'ao Village in Guangming New District, Shenzhen, looted vegetables in the village's vegetable fields. The incident lasted for half an hour before police dispersed the crowd and set up a cordon at the scene.

Five days ago, the village's mud receiving site collapsed, and 75 people remain missing. This over-400-mu vegetable field is the village's only vegetable cultivation area, and it has been used as a receiving site for the mud excavated from the accident site. Over a hundred vegetable farmers were notified on short notice to evacuate.

This move sparked dissatisfaction among the vegetable farmers. They said they support the disaster relief effort, but the compensation is too low, the notice was too abrupt, and the losses are severe.

Vegetable Farmers Notified on Short Notice to Harvest

In the early hours of the 22nd, Cai Jinren had already fallen asleep when two executives from Shenzhen Nanfeng Investment Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Nanfeng Company”) knocked on his door and told him he had to move out within two hours.

Cai Jinren said there was still a lot of furniture, fertilizer, and farming tools in the house, and more than 5 mu of strawberries had not been picked.

The executive said to take the main things and that there would be compensation later.

Cai Jinren hurriedly packed and moved out quilts, clothes, a television, and other items. The strawberries were in their picking season, and 5 mu of strawberries could have brought in 200,000 yuan in income. So far he had only sold 2,000 yuan worth, and then they were buried by the mud.

The vegetable field is divided into three zones. Cai Jinren's home is in Zone One, closest to the landslide site. Vegetable farmers in the other two zones were also notified on short notice to evacuate.

Vegetable farmer Tang Shifei said Nanfeng Company only gave two hours' notice, making it impossible to harvest the vegetables in time. On average, one mu of vegetables could sell for about 10,000 yuan. In addition, facilities such as wells, temporary housing, and automatic sprinkler pipes were destroyed in an instant, causing severe losses.

At noon on the 25th, a reporter from The Beijing News saw excavators piling mud onto the vegetable fields, while nearby vegetable farmers rushed nonstop to pick vegetables. About 50 passersby walked into the fields to loot vegetables, some even using plastic bags meant for fertilizer to carry the vegetables away.

One vegetable farmer tearfully pleaded with passersby not to pick vegetables from his family's plot, but could not stop them.

Executive Says Those Dissatisfied Can Petition

According to the agreement provided by the vegetable farmers, they signed a contract with Nanfeng Company on July 1 of this year stipulating that the rented vegetable plots could only be used for growing vegetables, with a management fee of 2,400 yuan per mu. They had already paid the management fee through June of next year.

The agreement stipulated that the land was for temporary cultivation, and if the government needed to use the land, Nanfeng Company was required to notify the vegetable farmers three months in advance.

However, Nanfeng Company only agreed to pay 5,000 yuan per mu in compensation, and the remaining 6 months of management fees would not be refunded. The vegetable farmers questioned whether the compensation was too low.

These vegetable farmers come from all over the country and built temporary structures beside their vegetable plots, where their families lived. These days they have nowhere to go and sleep by the roadside.

A general manager surnamed Wang from Nanfeng Company responded to a reporter from The Beijing News, saying that the company was established by Fenghuang Community and took over management of this vegetable field in the first half of this year. Because there was nowhere to dump the mud from the disaster-stricken area, the vegetable field was used as a temporary receiving site, with soil to be piled 1 meter high.

“The vegetable farmers and we are all innocent in this. There's no other way.” General Manager Wang said they also knew this was very wasteful of vegetables and wanted to help the farmers harvest, but they were short-handed and did not have that much money to compensate them.

“If anyone is dissatisfied, they can go to the subdistrict office to petition.” General Manager Wang said.