Farmers often complain that they are being forced to abandon their cherished land due to pressure from developers and local authorities. However, a regulation made it easier to replace entire villages with apartment buildings - and many are not pleased - either because they do not want to change their lifestyle or they feel cheated.

Dozens of families in a village in Jinan, Shandong Province moved out of their single-story homes in 2008 and into new apartments. Some villagers are refusing to change their lifestyle and complained of being cheated by developers. Photo: IC

The practice has developed into a trend that is making residents in 20 provinces across the country fearful they are about to lose their land and their single-story homes as authorities implement plans to seize land for new development.

Yin Hongfa, 59, of Guanzhuangdian village in Zhucheng, Shandong Province, said his farmland was seized by real estate developers last year and he recently found out that the government intends to take over the land where his house now sits.

"By the end of the year, all of us will be relocated to multistory buildings, which is under construction several hundred meters away," Yin told the Global Times yesterday.

At least 700,000 farmers in Zhucheng are facing the same fate because of the new regulation issued in 2008 which is now being implemented in full force.

A Zhucheng city government document issued in June said people in 1,249 sparsely populated villages will live together in 208 larger villages, and that means a new round of land seizure.

For example, people from about five or six villages will live together, Beijing-based China Youth Daily said. By moving farmers into taller apartment buildings instead of letting them live in their one-story home, land could be reserved for other purposes.

Between 2001 and 2008, the amount of farmland shrunk by 125 million mu (8 million hectares) and in 2009, the size of land reserved for farming stood at 1.82 billion mu, just barely above the government baseline minimum of 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares).

Villagers routinely get into physical confrontations with developers and their henchmen.

In October 2009, Yin and other villagers were attacked by a group of people employed by Zhou Junfa, a village leader, as they tried to guard their land from forced demolition. The villagers were, in essence, forced to surrender after bulldozers arrived and rolled over their crops.

"Without our permission, Zhou sold our land to a real estate developer for 100,000 yuan ($14,970) per mu (0.06 hectare). When we complained to the local government, we were asked to settle the matter by negotiating, but the local court refused to accept the case," said Zhou Hongfa, 76, a villager.