Time: August 1st, 2014
Lecturer: Professor XU Dianqing
Host: Professor ZHANG Shuguang
Commentators: FENG Xingyuan, GAO Wangling, LI Zhou, MAO Yushi, MO Zhihong, TAN Shuhao, ZHAO Nong, ZHENG Zhenyuan

Professor XU Dianqing introduced the four stages of the changes in the area of China’s arable land and briefly analyzed the causes and techniques used in measuring the land. He also mentioned one of the difficulties in measuring the arable land, which is the residential land, or the household plots, which is not included in the statistics. He thought the most important thing when we study the amounts of arable land of China is to understand the demand of grains and to take into account the stable price for grains, the decrease of Engel Coefficient, and the fact that many of China’s grains are used for producing liquor. He thought the current grain supply could well meet the demand. He also explained the reason of the rapid increase of arable land, which includes cultivating new land, urbanization, and the approved new land. He illustrated the construction land, and pointed out the problems of warehouse land which is mostly not used. Professor XU analyzed the low efficiency of industrial land use in urban areas and the chaotic land use in rural areas. He thought there was a waste of land resources as there was a lack of supplementary facilities in rural areas. At last, Professor XU shed some light upon the problem of migrant workers. He thought the cost of migrating from rural areas to urban areas was not as high as the government thought. He believed as migrant workers move from rural areas to urban areas, less household plots would be needed, and arable land would increase. All in all, Professor XU thought the redline of the of 18 million acres arable land was not reasonable, but it would not do much harm either as it reminded people to protect land resources and stay aware of the food security issue.