China’s Grain for Green Program: A Review of the Largest Ecological Restoration and Rural Development Program in the World
By Claudio O. Delang and Zhen Yuan Springer, 2015 Chapter 4
This chapter looks at the level of farmers’ compensation for all three plant types: economic trees, ecological trees, and grassland. Grain for Green regulations stipulate that compensation should only be paid if a large number of planted trees and grasses survive (initially 70 % in the Yellow River watershed and north China, and 85 % in the Yangtze River watershed and south China, later standardized to 75 % nation-wide). We show, however, that often compensation was also given if a smaller number of trees survived. The chapter also looks at the extent to which the funds are actually delivered to the farmers, which was a concern to the farmers when the program was introduced. Finally, the chapter reviews the total incomes of the farmers, comparing pre-Grain for Green incomes to post-Grain for Green incomes from the same land. In more cases than not, the post-Grain for Green incomes are higher than the pre-Grain for Green incomes from crop cultivation, which means that the program raised farmers’ incomes. However, the Grain for Green could have converted more land with the same budget, or the same amount of land with a lower budget.
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