Chinese land rights 'must not be violated'

Seed Daily via AFP: Farmers' rights to their land "must not be violated", China's premier told parliament on Monday, a day after elections in a village that became a symbol of resistance against official land grabs.

Government seizures of land -- a major source of discontent in China -- sparked a rare revolt in December in the southern village of Wukan, where residents said Communist officials had been seizing their land for decades.

In a speech to mark the opening of China's National People's Congress, Premier Wen Jiabao said farmers' rights must be protected.

"Farmers' rights to the land they contract to work on, to the land on which their houses sit, and to proceeds from collective undertakings, are property rights conferred by law, and these rights must not be violated by anyone," he said.

Land grabs have become an explosive issue in China as officials seeking to cash in on a property boom increasingly force farmers off their land to make way for construction -- an issue repeatedly condemned by Wen...

A sheep farm in northern China, shot by ILRI/Stevie Mann, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Nearly half China farmers suffer land grabs

Terra Daily via AFP: More than 43 percent of Chinese farmers in a wide-ranging study have been victims of land grabs and local governments have made huge profits in the process, state press said Tuesday.

Land grabs have become an explosive issue in China as officials seeking to cash in on a property boom increasingly force farmers off their land to make way for construction -- an issue repeatedly condemned by Premier Wen Jiabao. In one recent protest, villagers in the wealthy southern province of Guangdong faced off with authorities for more than a week in a row over land and graft, eventually winning rare concessions.

According to the study, conducted in 17 provinces and regions by Beijing's Renmin University and published in the 21st Century Business Herald, nearly a quarter of farmers did not receive any compensation for their land.

Almost two thirds of those surveyed who did receive compensation got a lump sum, which averaged 18,739 yuan ($3,000) per mu, a Chinese unit of land equivalent to 0.16 acres or 0.07 hectares, according to the study....