Zheng Baolin thinks his 0.5-hectare farm may not support him when he grows too old to work.

The 62-year-old farmer, who lives in Fengqiao Village, Rudong County in east China's Jiangsu Province, has only one married daughter. She now lives with her husband in a faraway city.

"I've been thinking of what I should do when I can't grow crops anymore. I think maybe I can try the new pension program," Zheng said.

A pilot rural pension program launched in China in August is expected to embrace 10 percent of the nation's counties by the end of 2009, and expand to cover the whole country by 2020.

It differs from the previous pension program, where funding was supplied by the farmers themselves. The new scheme will be subsidized by the central and local governments.

Farmers over 60 will receive a monthly endowment of varying amounts set according to their area's standard income levels after paying a fee to join the program.

In a country where the number of the people aged 60 and above exceeds 153 million, or 11 percent of the total population, the new pension program is bringing new hope to people like Zheng.

Zheng paid 9,300 yuan (1,300 U.S. dollars), or 1.5 times his annual income, last October in exchange for a life-time insurance pension.

In return he received 106 yuan a month in 2008. This year he has been getting 136 yuan a month.

"I was told I would get more as our city develops. That will ease the burden on my daughter who supports me," he said.

China's one-child policy during the past three decades has increased the burden on sons and daughters who have to support their parents singlehandedly.

The problem is worse in rural areas because many young people there have migrated to work in cities. They stay away for longer periods of time and some have even moved permanently. But their parents mostly stay in the countryside.

Nantong, a city in a booming coastal province, is among areas that began the pilot pension program in 2008.

A total of 1.07 million farmers in Nantong, nearly 95 percent of the city's population, had joined the plan by this July.

The new pension plan is "risk-free", as farmers reclaim the money they invested seven to eight years after they begin to receive the pension, said Zhu Xinping, director of Rudong's Pension Administration Center.

"After they get back their investment, they are earning money as long as they live," he said. "If they die before getting what they have paid in, their children inherit the remaining money in their personal pension account."

Rudong statistics show farmers are enthusiastic about the pension plan, as the fee paid by farmers in 2008 added up, on average, to the past 16 years income.

But there is still a long way to go to put the scheme into place fully.

"It's a great plan and we want more farmers to know about its benefits, but it takes time for them to accept new things," said Guan Chunlin, head of the Fengqiao Village.

He said only 550 out of the 3,385 farmers in Fengqiao Village had joined the program.

Most of the local villagers did not sign up for the program because they could not afford it.

"Right now, I have to pay for my son's tuition fees. I'll join when I have the money," one farmer said.

"I'm all alone, no children, no spouse. I wonder where would the money go if I pass away," another farmer said.

The average annual income of Fengqiao farmers was 6,200 yuan in 2008. The 9,300-yuan pension fee is a lot of money but 132 yuan a month is more than sufficient for pensioners to live on.

"The newly announced plan is another major effort by the Chinese government to promote the well-being of rural citizens and to reduce urban-rural disparities," Albert Park, an Oxford University economics professor, a specialist on China's aging society, told Xinhua in an email.

But, Park said, the investment of farmer's contributions to ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the program and equitable benefits for the elderly living in different parts of the country were major concerns.

"Although there will be many challenges in financing and managing such a large-scale program, especially as the population continues to grow older, the new program reflects the government's recognition of the difficulties that will increasingly be faced by China's rural elderly," he said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2009)