Anxious at the spreading unrest among farmers left behind in the rush to get rich, China’s Communist Party leaders yesterday unveiled sweeping reforms to give its 730 million or more rural residents more say in what they do with their land.

The measures herald potentially the most far-reaching changes in rural China since a party plenum exactly 30 years ago when the late leader Deng Xiaoping launched market-oriented reforms with a decision to move away from communes and to allow farmers to till individual plots of land.

Approved at a twice-a-year plenum of the party’s Central Committee earlier this month, the scheme will allow farmers to transfer their land-use rights and to join share-holding entities with their farmland. The policies, still lacking in crucial details, effectively give farmers – rather than village leaders – the authority to decide how to use their land.

Tens of thousands of peasant protests erupt each year and nearly half are linked to land grabs by local officials who see a chance to make money by turning over land on the outskirts of towns and villages to developers. The influential Caijing magazine said the problem was growing “worse and worse” with tighter approval procedures introduced in 2006 merely prompting officials to force peasants to rent their land rather than seizing it outright.

The new rules could reduce the power of officials to abuse their powers to take back land that remains collectively owned and is leased to farmers on 30-year contracts. Heated debate over how to give farmers greater security in their land rights has focused on the issue of ownership.

Public ownership of land is a fundamental tenet of Communist Party rule and any attempt to enshrine farmers’ ownership of their plots provokes howls of anger from Marxist ideologists. However, the current system of 30-year leases that can be extended gives effective ownership while maintaining the fig-leaf of public control – but has created a system rife with abuse.

Under the new rules, severe punishment would be meted out to anyone violating farmers’ interests.

Activists who have spearheaded bold challenges to collective ownership by unilateral declarations of ownership in four provinces hailed the reforms as a breakthrough for farmers, although they said they were still hoping for full privatisation of land.

Li Zhiying, a rural activist, told Times Online: “The Party was forced to do this because they understood that it was the only way to halt the pressure from demonstrations by farmers across China.”

Chen Xiwen, head of the party’s rural affairs office, said: “When farmers shift to cities to work or start their own businesses, their land will not sit idle if they are allowed to transfer their own land rights.”

One market for land transfer rights already opened last week in the south-western city of Chengdu and could help farmers to boost their incomes. In 2007, urban residents earned three times more than their rural counterparts – the biggest gap in history.

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