China Issued Notice on Controlling the Use of the Plowland

The Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the National Forestry and Grass Administration jointly issued the "Notice on Issues Concerning the Control the Use of the Plowland "(“Notice”).

1. Strictly implementing the special protection system for permanent basic farmland. The current status of permanent basic farmland for planting food crops shall remain unchanged; the permanent basic farmland shall not be converted into forest land, grassland, garden land and other agricultural land and land for agricultural facility construction.

2. Strictly controlling the conversion of general plowland to other agricultural land. Plowland other than permanent basic farmland is general plowland. Non-agricultural construction shall not be "built before approval". For those approved for implementation, the location of the implementation should be clarified on the base map of the "three adjustments" and the results of the annual land change survey.

3. Strictly occupying and replenishing permanent basic farmland. No unit or individual may occupy or change the purpose of the designated permanent basic farmland without authorization. If the site selection for major construction projects such as energy, transportation, water conservancy, and military facilities is indeed difficult to evade permanent basic farmland, upon approval, the permanent basic farmland replenishment task shall be implemented on the long-term stability-used plowland based on the principle of requisition-compensation balance of arable land.

4.       Improving and standardizing the requisition-compensation balance of plowland occupation by construction. For illegal occupation of cultivated land for non-agricultural construction, first freezing the supplementary cultivated land index in the place where the illegal land is used in the reserve warehouse, and then removing the frozen after re-cultivation; after investigation and punishment, if the land use procedures can be replaced and meet the conditions, the supplementary farmland index of the same quantity and quality in the reserve warehouse will be directly deducted for the balance of the occupation and supplement.