Xiong Jianshui, a farmer living in eastern China's Jiangxi Province, is leading his fellow villagers in bringing a lawsuit against the villager's committee for land requisition.

The committee is accused of illegally requisitioning 85 mu (5.6 hectares) of arable farmland from Xiong and another 42 villagers, who live in the suburbs of Nanchang, the provincial capital, in 2002. The case was brought to the local court last June.

Though the suit was turned down again and again, Xiong as well as his village partners are confident of winning a fair verdict by the end, for they know the Chinese government has launched a new round of reform on land requisition to protect arable land and the interests of farmers.

The No. 1 document issued by the central government this year demanded local governments at all levels should strictly protect farmland.

According to the document, those who take over farmer's land have the responsibility to take care of the employment and social welfare issues of those farmers, and higher compensation standards for the farmers should be adopted if the acquisition is for commercial purposes.

Since 1990, land requisition for construction projects soared during the course of urbanization and industrialization in the country.

The rights and interests of the newly landless farmers can't always be guaranteed because of low standards and unreasonable allocation for the compensation. In 2003, a total of 160,000 cases concerning illegal land requisition were exposed in China.

In fact, the Land and Resources Ministry had begun a reform in experimental units in 2001, trying to safeguard the interests and rights of farmers by improving the compensation standards, resettling the land-lost and innovating the land requisition procedure.

Meanwhile, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, has begun drafting an amendment to the country's land administration law.

To protect its precious land resources, the Chinese government has vowed to implement stringent rules and regulations on the acquisition and use of farmland, especially on those used for profit-making purposes.

"China is experiencing an overall revolution in land requisition, which will benefit a total of 900 million Chinese farmers," said Chen Meiqiu, an expert on the land requisition system in Jiangxi Agricultural University.

Other experts also said that the reform will play an important role in ensuring China's long-term security on food supply.

Currently, China has about 130 million hectares of arable land,0.1 hectares per capita, which is less than 40 percent of the world average.

Xiong Jianshui and his fellow villagers are awaiting the verdict from the local court.

(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2004)