The continuing decrease of farmland and recent grain price hike in China have fully alarmed the Chinese government about its food security, and it has vowed to take tough measures to protect farmland from misuse.

The Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) issued a circular on Wednesday, urging all localities to crack down on illegal use of farmland in the harshest and fastest possible ways to ensure grain production capacity.

The move followed Sunday's announcement by the ministry that it would investigate five major cases involving illegal use of land, in north China's Tianjin Municipality, east China's Jiangxi Province and Shandong Province, and northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

"The root cause of the decrease of farmland nationwide lies in the local governments," said Wang Shiyuan, director of the MLR's General Office, who blamed them for misuse of farmland in hot pursuit of "economic benefits", such as setting up too many industrial parks or development zones.

"Therefore, local governments will be the key to resolving the issue," he noted, citing the fact that in the five cases that had been revealed, local governments were found to be directly involved in four of them.

Official statistics indicated that in 1996, China had 130 million hectares of farmland, but the figure had dropped to only 125 million hectares by the end of last year, a harsh reality for China's 1.3 billion people.

Guo Baoping, an official with the MLR's Law Enforcement and Supervision Bureau, also blamed the ill-planned industrial or development zones as one of the major causes for the drop of farmland.

He cited the fact that some such zones occupied up to 200 square kilometers of farmland, forcing farmers to leave their homes. "What is worse, some of the zones were never built," he said.

Guo pledged that the ministry would take more effective measures to monitor the conditions of farmland nationwide, including using a satellite remote sensor system.

"As soon as an act of illegal use of land is found, we will launch a swift investigation and punish those who are responsible severely according to the law," he noted.

Pan Wencan, director of the MLR's Planning Department, said that in the future, the development of high-end real estate such as villas would have to go through a strict approval process, but meanwhile, the development of affordable housing would be encouraged.

He especially pointed to the fact that no farmland would be approved for non-farming use unless the farmers agreed.

Earlier this year, five departments of the central government, including the ministry, launched a nationwide crackdown on illegal transfer of land.

A total of 168,000 cases involving illegal use of land have been handled so far this year, twice as much as the same period of last year.

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