China is speeding ahead with urbanization. The process requires new land and there have been many serious incidents as people are being evicted from their land, often without a fair compensation. Corruption is part of the process and many Maseratis driving around might well be financed by those shady deals.
On the other hand, productivity in agriculture is much needed but that can only be achieved by merging plots of land to allow more advanced mechanization. Until now this has been nearly impossible as landownership has been badly defined and no official data are available, so farmers cling to their small plots, afraid to lose their rights.
There is now hope on the way.
China has started a satellite program to map tiny plots of land and set up a vast database, leading to official ownership certificates.
The pilot project has started in Anhui Province and seems to advance well, despite some initial reluctance and the difficulty to match the satellite data with existing rights.
China has legalized land transfers in 2008 to allow villagers to aggregate land.
China’s annual rural policy document, released early 2013, calls for farmland titles to be defined nationwide during the next five years. It is a technical challenge that could cost US$16 billion.
Estimates for the cost of the satellite mapping range from a national total of about 18 billion renminbi, to 100 billion renminbi, and even 150 billion renminbi.
But it would solve a host of problems.
Read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/technology/satellites-put-small-farms-on-chinas-map.html
“Satellites Put Small Farms on China’s Map”, by LUCY HORNBY and HUI LI, REUTERS, IHT/NYT, published: February 6, 2013