In step with China’s rapid urbanization and agricultural mechanization, the labor force in rural areas is flowing to manufacturing and services and there is a growing trend of rural land usage rights being transferred and agriculture being managed on ever larger scales. Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture show that by the end of June 2016, over 70 million rural households had transferred their operational rights of farmlands, accounting for 30 percent of the total. In coastal areas, the percentage even hit 50 percent. Over the past 10 years, the shift of land operation rights has gained popularity and through which a growing number of regions have solved the problems of fallow land and boosted the incomes of farmers. However, farmers in many places have found that after the transfer, it is virtually impossible for land to be restored thanks to the conversion of once-cultivated land to industrial purposes.
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