Balancing cultivated land occupation and compensation cannot be judged by numbers alone; quality matters just as much

Due to the long-accumulated impulse and inertia toward extensive land use, combined with multiple causes such as incomplete institutions, imperfect mechanisms and loopholes in supervision, the balance of occupation and compensation has been distorted in some places, even turning into a numbers game, making it hard to guarantee grain output and hard to sustain sustainable agricultural development. China's cultivated land protection situation remains very severe, and we must strictly adhere to the requirement of “occupy one, compensate one; occupy prime land, compensate prime land”, ensuring that both the quantity and quality of compensated cultivated land are in place, rather than merely maintaining a numerical balance

When it comes to the balance of cultivated land occupation and compensation, a set of the latest figures from the Second National Land Survey is unforgettable: over the 13 years from 1996 to 2009, just the 5 coastal provinces of southeast China reduced paddy fields by 17.98 million mu, equivalent to wiping out the entire paddy field area of Fujian Province.

After the implementation of the newly revised Land Administration Law in 1999, the policy of balancing cultivated land occupation and compensation began to be enforced. More than 10 years have passed, and although we emphasize holding the red line for cultivated land, many problems still exist in the balance of occupation and compensation, some of them even shocking.

Recently, central leaders issued important instructions on the balance of cultivated land occupation and compensation, requiring more forceful measures to strengthen supervision of the balance of occupation and compensation, resolutely prevent problems of insufficient compensation quantity and insufficient compensation quality in the balance of occupation and compensation, and resolutely prevent the phenomena of occupying more and compensating less, occupying prime land and compensating poor land, and occupying paddy fields and compensating dry land. These important instructions not only set clear requirements for doing a good job in balancing cultivated land occupation and compensation in accordance with the law and regulations at present, but also point out the direction for implementing the strictest cultivated land protection system.

For many years, due to the long-accumulated impulse and inertia toward extensive land use, combined with multiple causes such as incomplete institutions, imperfect mechanisms and loopholes in supervision, the balance of occupation and compensation has been distorted in some places, even turning into a numbers game. This diluted numerical balance has embellished the “face” of statistical compliance in some places, concealed the “substance” of declining cultivated land quality, and is far removed from the requirement of a dual balance in both quantity and quality under “occupy one, compensate one; occupy prime land, compensate prime land”.

This mismatch between occupation and compensation is mainly manifested at two levels: urban expansion and the reduction of cultivated land in rural areas. In recent years, urban outward expansion has occupied large amounts of land, and since cities are mostly located in plains or areas with better soil conditions, more than half of the land occupied by urban expansion has been cultivated land. Data from the Ministry of Land and Resources show that from the completion of the First National Land Survey in 1996 to the completion of the Second National Land Survey in 2009, urban land increased by 41.78 million mu, and what was occupied was basically cultivated land. As for compensated cultivated land, in some large cities and megacities the unused land available for reclamation is nearing exhaustion, and in some places it is very difficult to compensate for cultivated land. In order to achieve the balance of occupation and compensation, many places occupy nearby land and compensate with distant land, occupy prime land and compensate with poor land, occupy paddy fields and compensate with dry land. With such a balance of occupation and compensation, even if the numbers balance, it is hard to guarantee grain output and hard to sustain sustainable agricultural development.

In rural areas, in addition to the advance of urban boundaries and the expansion of industrial parks, there are also problems such as extensive internal construction, and the reduction of cultivated land and compensation with poor land caused by trading land quotas. Some traditional agricultural areas one-sidedly treat building new houses as a symbol of new rural construction, occupying cultivated land to build houses and courtyards; or, in order to obtain land trading quotas in the balance of occupation and compensation, they make farmers move into apartment buildings in a concentrated way, and some even make farmers from remote mountainous areas move into towns as entire villages, reclaiming the former farmstead land as cultivated land to trade away as quotas, while such land takes a very long time to become mature cultivated land, and some can no longer be farmed, existing only in statistical figures.

Cultivated land is the most precious resource, and the basic national conditions of China, namely a small per capita amount of cultivated land, generally low cultivated land quality and insufficient reserve cultivated land resources, will not change for a long time. In terms of per capita cultivated land, China's per capita cultivated land was 1.59 mu in 1996 and dropped to 1.52 mu in 2009, much lower than the world average of 3.38 mu per capita. In terms of cultivated land quality, a considerable portion of the existing cultivated land consists of forest land, grassland and sloping land that needs to be gradually withdrawn in ecological development, and a considerable portion is contaminated by heavy metals or unsuitable for farming due to mining subsidence, groundwater overexploitation and other reasons. Such national and agricultural conditions determine that China's cultivated land protection situation remains very severe, and we must strictly adhere to the requirement of “occupy one, compensate one; occupy prime land, compensate prime land”, ensuring that both the quantity and quality of compensated cultivated land are in place, rather than merely maintaining a numerical balance.