Access to Land

  • The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture reported that 12 million ha (10% of the total country area) were operated by 877,000 capitalists or quasi-capitalists “family farms” having an average landholding of 13 ha – an amount much larger than the average land holding of a peasant family under the “Household Responsibility System,” which was only 0.5 ha. (Chinese Ministry of Agriculture, The First National Family Farm Survey as cited in China’s Grain Production: A Decade of Consecutive Growth or Stagnation? by Zhun Xu, Wei Zhang, and Minqi Li)
  • It was estimated by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture that the average land ownership in 2006 was 1.59 mu (0.09 ha).
  • Based from a survey conducted in 2003, approximately 15% of the peasants (51-55 million) had lost their lands. And in 2006, the number of landless peasants has increased 127 million (Estimated by Professor Wang Jingxin of Zhejiang of Normal University)

Land Disputes

In 2006, the Ministry of Agriculture calculations revealed that every year, 4 million mu (266,700 ha) of rural land was taken for development, including over 2 million mu (133,300 ha) of agricultural land owned by peasants.

Food Security and Nutrition

  • 11.5% of the population in 2010-2012 are undernourished (data from Food Security Portal facilitated by IFPRI).
  • A UNICEF report reveals that 40% of children in rural areas suffered from growth retardation. And from the 2010 report, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that the overall growth retardation rate for children under the age of five was 9.9%, including 3.4% and 12.1% in the urban and rural areas respectively (Excerp from “Malnutrition stunts growth of 10 million Chinese children by Lu Sumei, 2012)