Low rewards

Wang Yunlong, an NPC deputy and head of the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee of the NPC Standing Committee, said on Sunday on the sidelines of the session that the comparative benefits from farming "are still very low" in China.

Xie Deti, dean of the School of Resources and Environment at the Southwest University in Chongqing, said in a recent survey that a rice farmer in Chongqing only gets a net income of 4,050 yuan per hectare, from planting a season of rice. About 7,500 kg of rice can be produced from one hectare of farmland and is worth about 15,750 yuan, but agricultural resources such as seeds and chemicals cost 2,550 yuan, and manpower in ploughs and harvesting cost about 9,150 yuan.

What's more, the rising costs of agricultural resources and labor almost offset the steady increase of subsidies from the government, said Xie, who is also a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

"The biggest challenge in farming is labor shortages as young people all migrate to cities for high payments and only the children and the old are left to farm," said Guo Fenglian, an NPC deputy and Party chief of Dazhai village in Shanxi. The village gained fame in the 1960s by turning its barren hillsides into high-yielding terraced farmland.

The key is adjusting China's economic structure, and reforms in the rural areas should never stop, she said last week during the NPC session.

Xie from Southwest University said low comparative benefits, draining of rural labors and a lagging agricultural structure all account for farmland desertion, which is widespread and keeps widening. China's total arable land declined from about 128 million hectares in 2001 to about 121 million hectares in 2011.

"The central government has long pledged to keep arable land above 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares). But the present work is enhancing farmland efficiency, which is key to grain production and is also an urgent and fatal issue to China's food security," said Jin, deputy Party chief of Shanxi.