Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou take the lead in designating permanent basic farmland on the urban fringe; urban construction must avoid it

The Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture issue a document: high-quality farmland around towns and along transport routes that is easily occupied will be protected on a priority basis; 14 cities will take the lead in designation

According to the website of the Ministry of Land and Resources, the Ministry of Land and Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture recently jointly issued the "Notice on Further Improving the Designation of Permanent Basic Farmland" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), which requires that, on the basis of the existing work of designating permanent basic farmland, existing high-quality farmland around towns and along transport routes that is easily occupied be designated as permanent basic farmland on a priority basis.

Under the arrangement, the work of designating permanent basic farmland around 14 cities - Beijing, Shenyang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Guiyang and Xi'an - will be carried out first, and the nationwide work of designating permanent basic farmland and improving the results will be fully completed before the end of 2016.

In some places, designation is done far away rather than nearby, and poor land rather than good land

At present, in some cities the overlap between planned construction land and high-quality farmland is relatively high, and around large and medium-sized cities there is still a considerable amount of high-quality farmland that has not been designated as permanent basic farmland, while the phenomenon of urban development occupying high-quality farmland remains fairly prominent; at the same time, in some places there is still the phenomenon of designating land far away rather than nearby, and poor land rather than good land. For this reason, the "Notice" emphasizes that the importance and urgency of the work of designating permanent basic farmland must be fully recognized, and farmland resources must be protected with full diligence.

Designation is to begin with cities of more than 5 million people

The "Notice" requires that the designation work follow the principle of giving priority to farmland protection and placing equal weight on quantity and quality, and that the red line for permanent basic farmland protection be strictly drawn in accordance with the requirements of a basically stable layout, no reduction in quantity and an improvement in quality. The designation work must be coordinated with the delineation of urban development boundaries and ecological protection red lines, and linked with the integration of multiple plans, including economic and social development plans, overall land use plans and urban and rural plans.

Each province (region, municipality) is to begin with megacities with a population of more than 5 million, provincial capital cities and cities under separate state planning, and designate in the order of towns from large to small, space from near to far, and farmland quality grade and fertility grade from high to low.