National Land Consolidation Plan (2016～2020).

This National Plan for Land Consolidation (2016-2020) is a cross-sectoral plan, aiming at strictly protecting arable land to improve grain production, optimizing land utilization, and consolidating scattered, idle, and inefficient land.
Depending on the initial land use types and conditions, land consolidation can be grouped into three classes: farmland consolidation, land exploitation, and land reclamation. Farmland consolidation targets existing agricultural land; land exploitation focuses on converting unused land (including wild grass land, saline and alkali land, swampland,etc.) to agricultural lands; and land reclamation aims at converting vacant/idle urban construction land and disaster-damaged farmlands back to agricultural uses. China is currently experiencing rapid economic development and unprecedented urbanization. The challenge of using 7.63% of world’s cultivated land to feed China’s 19.78% of world’s population is one of China’s top priorities. According to the plan, at least 400 million mu (2.7 million square meters) high-level farm land should be built with 20 million mu reclaimed from land consolidation. Through the consolidation of agricultural land, about 200 million mu of middle and low-level arable land shall be improved, the construction of farmland infrastructure shall be carried out, 9 million km of drainage and irrigation channels shall be built, 6 million km of field roads shall be built, and the foundation of arable land protection will be more solid.
The Plan is designed mainly to mitigate farmland losses with aims to increase high-level farmland area and improve agricultural productivity. Meanwhile, land utilization per unit of GDP should be reduced by 20 percent, with land reclamation rate reaching more than 45 percent. Given that China's ecological environment remains fragile and the environmental safety situation is pretty grim, along with the rapid progress in the process of urbanization and industrialization, adhering to the cultivated land red line is not only an important basis for national food security, but also an important guarantee for sustainable socio-economic development. The Plan requests to actively carry out land ecological renovation, strengthen farmland ecological construction, rationally use land resources, and significantly improve the ecological environment. It calls to strengthen the renovation of land ecological environment in sensitive, vulnerable areas with serious water and soil loss, rocky desertification or desertification, and enhance efforts to restore degraded and contaminated land.
The Plan also urges more policy and fund support to land consolidation in poverty-stricken areas.
In addition, local governments should improve measures and policies to ensure a smooth implementation of the Plan under the support and watch of related competent departments.