Ministry of Land and Resources Requires Ensuring Agricultural Land Stays Agricultural, Land Use Must Not Be Changed

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 Supporting the Healthy Development of Facility Agriculture" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). The "Notice" makes clear that arbitrarily expanding the scope of facility agricultural land is strictly prohibited, and land in various agricultural parks involving the construction of permanent catering, accommodation, conference, large parking lot, industrialized agricultural products processing, exhibition and sales, etc., must be managed as construction land in accordance with laws and regulations.

The "Notice" is divided into four parts: First, reasonably defining the scope of facility agricultural land. The "Notice" specifically divides facility agricultural land into production facility land, ancillary facility land and supporting facility land, further clarifying the three aspects of the scope. When defining the scope, the supporting facility land needed for large-scale grain production is included in the scope of facility agricultural land, in order to support large-scale land operation and large-scale grain production; at the same time, the living land among ancillary facilities is removed from the scope of facility agricultural land.

The "Notice" makes clear that arbitrarily expanding the scope of facility agricultural land is strictly prohibited. Land for commercial grain storage, processing and the storage and repair of agricultural machinery and agricultural materials, leisure, sightseeing and vacation sites based on agriculture, various manors, wineries, agritainment, as well as land in various agricultural parks involving the construction of permanent catering, accommodation, conference, large parking lot, industrialized agricultural product processing, exhibition and sales, etc., must be managed as construction land in accordance with laws and regulations.

Second, actively supporting land use for the development of facility agriculture. The "Notice" focuses on making provisions on such contents as “facility agricultural land is managed as agricultural land”, “reasonably controlling the scale of ancillary facility and supporting facility land”, “guiding the reasonable site selection of facility construction”, and “encouraging the centralized construction of public facilities”. The "Notice" makes clear that land for production facilities, ancillary facilities and supporting facilities is directly used for or serves agricultural production, and its nature belongs to agricultural land, and it is managed as agricultural land; after production ends, the operator shall carry out land reclamation in accordance with relevant provisions, and land occupying cultivated land shall be reclaimed as cultivated land. For supporting facility construction involving large-scale grain production in plain areas, where site selection truly cannot be arranged on other land categories and basic farmland cannot be avoided, basic farmland may be occupied after demonstration.

Third, standardizing the use of facility agricultural land. The "Notice" requires that those engaged in facility agriculture construction shall agree on land use conditions through the operator and the land owner, and shall give play to the management role of township-level governments to standardize land use behavior. The land use agreement shall be signed by three parties: the township government, the rural collective economic organization and the operator, and shall be filed together with the facility construction plan with the county-level competent department of land and resources and the agriculture department; construction must not start if it does not conform to the relevant provisions on facility agricultural land.

Fourth, strengthening services and supervision for facility agricultural land. The "Notice" requires proactively disclosing relevant policies and provisions on the construction and management of facility agricultural land, strengthening supervision of facility agricultural land, and strictly enforcing the law on facility agricultural land. It also emphasizes that operators must use land in accordance with the agreement, ensuring agricultural land stays agricultural; they must not change the land use, and are prohibited from arbitrarily or disguisedly using facility agricultural land for other non-agricultural construction; they must not exceed land use standards, and are prohibited from arbitrarily expanding the scale of facility land use or disguisedly expanding the scale of facility land use through filing land use in multiple installments; they must not change the nature of facilities directly engaged in or serving agricultural production, and are prohibited from arbitrarily using facilities for other operations. At the same time, the use and management of facility agricultural land will be included in the assessment content of the cultivated land protection responsibility targets of provincial-level governments.