Home » Opinion » Opinion Columns
Food safety, sanctity of soil defiled by greed, land grabs
Print Edition
AFTER days of balmy spring breeze and sunshine, the rain falling for the rest of the week will sustain the life-giving revolution quietly going on in our soil.
Simultaneously, there has been also an insidious attempt to suppress this revolution by stifling the soil under layer and layer of concrete, in cities and, increasingly, rural areas thirsty for development.
Here is the latest evidence.
A fatal fire broke out in the small hours of March 21 in a tent on farmland-turned-construction site in a village in Pingdu, in east China’s Shandong Province, killing one person and injuring three others.
Police have found evidence of arson.
The villagers have been locked in a dispute with the local government over transfer of their farmland to developers without properly consulting the farmers about their wishes.
To block construction, the tent was set up and each night four villagers would be on duty, sleeping in the tent.
On that fateful night, the tent was doused with gasoline and set on fire.
Local officials said the appropriation procedures are legal and the villagers were duly compensated.
Bloody land grab
But according to the Oriental Morning Post on Monday, the local government had falsified documents and threatened village cadres in order to turn 374 mu or 250,000 hectares, mostly fertile farmland, into land for real estate development. The report quoted a village whistle blower.
In a published photo we saw villagers marching in memory of the victim, holding floral wreaths and carrying banners. They passed a huge real estate billboard advertising flats to be built on that location, formerly farmland, each flat costing 3,650 yuan (US$590)/sqm and above.
Another photo shows lush fields of wheat right next to the scene of the arson.
According to one calculation by the People’s Daily, that local government first expropriated the land from the peasants at less than 80,000 yuan per mu, and then sold it to developers at 1.23 million yuan per mu.
That kind of profit can justify any kind of murderous attempt.
We are wont to describe China as dida wubo, a country of vast territory endowed with abundant resources.
Experts point out that this description is misleading, for much of the country is rugged and arable land is concentrated along the east coast, including around Shandong and Shanghai.
Stigma of farming
Chinese farmers used to jealously guard their land, for no amount of money can replace a tract of land as a source of subsistence from generation to generation.
In the past two decades villagers have been flocking to the east coast, not because of the fertility of the eastern soil, but because factories springing up there afforded ambitious migrants a chance to stop being peasants.
For a nation that no longer regards simple contentment and frugality as virtues, undermining the desirability of life on the soil — and the soil itself — is the necessary first step leading to a good life.
Similarly, politically ambitious officials vie with each other in attracting investment by erecting factories on farm fields.
Occasionally, particularly in the wake of sensational food scandals, we are suddenly reminded of our food safety problem, and many people are outraged.
But few see our food problem in light of our growing estrangement from the soil, the source of life.
In the game of globalization, local officials who prefer manufacturing jobs as more dignified, are striving to outsource the dirty work of growing food to the most shiftless peasants, or farmers overseas. Out of sight, out of mind.
Yes, we are still periodically alarmed by reports of the heavy use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, growth hormones and GM, or genetically modified, foods.
A TV presenter recently created a stir by openly challenging the safety of GM food.
Even the famous agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, who developed some high-yielding hybrid strains of rice, told a forum on March 22 in Beijing that special attention must be paid to GM strains of grain and other food that are disease- and pest-resistant.
“If pests die after eating these food, what will become of the human beings who have consumed these things?” he asked.
But chemicals and GM techniques are more or less innocuous compared with the overriding need to feed more people on less farmland.
We should take solace in the fact that although local governments east and west are busy grabbing farmland and selling it to developers, we still manage to keep the wolves from the doors, thanks largely to increased grain output and imports.
Following 10 years of steady increases in grain output, further increases will be very difficult, said Chen Xiwen, deputy director of the Central Rural Work Leading Group.
“Reckless growth in production has already led to such problems as soil contamination, ecological damage, and environmental pollution,” Chen told a seminar on December 30 in Beijing.
Rice bowls
Chen warned that if we continue to boost output by using more petroleum-based products like pesticides and fertilizers, as well plastics, the safety of our agricultural products cannot be guaranteed and our rural environment will become unsustainable.
And our dependence on imports is crippling.
By late last year, domestically grown wheat, corn and rice are all considerably more expensive than imports, even allowing for transport costs and tariffs.
In China’s Northeast, farmers are giving up growing soybeans because GM imports are much cheaper.
At a rural work conference in December 24, President Xi Jinping, while stressing the importance of absolute safety of our staple foods, demanded that “Chinese bowls should contain food grown by ourselves.”
Xi went on to say that history has taught us that in case of famine, money will be meaningless.
We can no longer pretend to care about our food safety problem while refraining from taking effective action to discourage local governments from grabbing land from peasants.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
