China must give its hundreds of millions of rural residents a much bigger share of profits from farmland seized in the name of economic growth, Premier Wen Jiabao said on Tuesday, a week after a stand-off that dramatized widespread tension over land.
Wen, who has cast himself as a defender of the farmer, also warned government officials not to force villagers to give up their farmland rights even if they join the rising tide of migrants heading to towns and cities for work, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Wen's speech to an annual rural policy conference highlighted how acute land problems have become for the ruling Communist Party, struggling to balance the pressure of urbanisation and industrialisation against worries about rural inequality and unrest.
Wen said that after decades of rapid growth underwritten by farmland taken for relatively little compensation, it was time for China to tilt in favour of the farmers.
"We should recognise that our country's level of economic development has risen far, and we can no longer sacrifice farmers' land property rights for the sake of lowering the costs of industrialisation and urbanisation," said Wen.
"We must, and also have the conditions to, dramatically increase the share of gains that goes to farmers from enhancing the value of land," said Wen.
Wen has just over a year before he retires from the premiership.
He vowed to push through new rules next year to combat abuses and inequities in farmland requisitions.
Whether those rules can rein in local governments, often heavily dependent on seizing farmland to attract investment and generate revenue, is less certain.
For 10 days up to last Wednesday, residents of Wukan village in southern Guangdong province drove out officials and protested over confiscated farmland and the death of a protest organiser, drawing widespread attention to rural grievances over land seizures and compensation.
The protests ended after officials made concessions over the land and the death of the village leader, Xue Jinbo, whose family suspects he was beaten in custody.
Yet less publicised protests and mass petitions over farmland are common across many areas where villages run up against the demands of expanding towns and cities.
Farmers in China do not own their own land.
Instead, most land is owned collectively by a village, with farmers allocated leases for usage rights that last for decades.
In theory, villages decide whether to apply to sell off or develop land.
In practice, however, government officials can decide - and they often override the wishes of farmers.
From 1993 up to and recent years, the number of "mass incidents" of unrest recorded by the Chinese government grew from 8,700 to about 90,000, according to most experts.
Conflict over land requisitions accounted for more than 65 percent of rural "mass incidents", the China Economic Times reported this year, citing survey data.
Price pressures and the shockwaves from global financial upheavals made it all the more important to shore up agricultural productivity, said Wen.
"Next year, macro-economic adjustment faces complex and severe conditions, especially with slowing economic growth co-existing with rising price pressures, and so doing well in rural work is particularly significant," he said.
"Although in recent years production of cereals and major farm commodities has increased greatly, production capacities remain unsteady, supply-demand settings remain tight, and the slightest misstep in agriculture would damage the wider situation of economic development and social stability."
In a bid to ensure basic self-sufficiency, China has set a "red line" that the amount of arable land must not shrink below 120 million hectares (300 million acres).
Wen also warned against overreaching with experimental programmes to offer rural residents urban residential status - and some of the welfare benefits that go with it - in return for giving up farmland rights.
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