Farmers say they have lost more than half of their agricultural land to the solar farms spread next door.
Baoding:
beaten, forcibly stripped of their land, cheated for money, and even falsely imprisoned – farmers in China say they are paying a heavy price as officials Rush to deliver on ambitious promises to increase national green energy production.
China has vowed the upcoming Winter Olympics 2022 will be the first Games to run entirely on wind and solar power, and has built a number of facilities to increase capacity – but activists warn that there will be “land grabs” in the process. Common people are being exploited by ,
In a village near Beijing, the Long family – who say they have lost more than half of their agricultural land to a giant solar farm next door – now have so little income that they can husk corn to stay warm in winter. And burning plastic bags. ,
Farmer Long from Huangjiao village, using a Chinese unit of land equivalent to about 667 square meters, said, “When the power company leased the land for 25 years, we were promised just 1,000 yuan per mu of land every year. it was done.”
“We can earn more than double the amount by growing corn in the same area. Now without land, I make a living as a daily wage laborer.”
China is the world’s largest producer of wind turbines and solar panels, and the Winter Olympics are seen as an opportunity to showcase the country’s green technologies as they seek global markets.
To ensure uninterrupted power supply for the Games – and to clear the winter haze that is chilling the Chinese capital – Beijing’s neighboring Hebei province has built a massive plant that takes power from renewable projects in the province.
That one plant generates 14 billion kilowatt hours of clean electricity each year, similar to Slovenia’s annual energy consumption.
But the boom of green energy has made their lives more dangerous and difficult for farmers like Long and its neighboring Pai.
Pai says villagers were forced to sign contracts – seen by AFP – to lease their land to a solar park created by State Power Investment Group (SPIC), one of the country’s five largest utility companies. But give
Those who did not agree were beaten up by the police, he said, adding, “Some were hospitalised, some were detained.”
‘Suppressed and imprisoned’
Pai was jailed for 40 days for “unlawful assembly and disturbing the peace” after a public protest, while Long remained in prison for nine months.
“The situation is similar to that of a mafia,” Pai said. “If you complain, you will be suppressed, imprisoned and punished.”
The average annual disposable rural income in Baoding is about 16,800 yuan ($2,600), a figure both Long and Pai said they can no longer make up.
AFP could not confirm whether electricity from the SPIC project near Huangjiao would be used directly to power the Olympic venues, as this information is not publicly available.
When asked by AFP, the company declined to confirm.
But the Zhangjiakou government – the city that co-hosts the Games – has said that since winning the Olympic bid in 2015, the region has “transformed itself from scratch into the largest non-hydro renewable energy base in China.”
Government subsidies for wind and solar farms have spurred the construction of such projects in other parts of Hebei, as China scrambles to cut air pollution ahead of the Games.
Amnesty International said in a statement that “forced evictions, illegal land confiscations, and loss of livelihoods related to loss of land” were among the most pressing human rights concerns associated with the wind and solar power sectors.
China wants 25 percent of its electricity to come from non-fossil fuels by 2030.
To achieve this, the country would have to more than double its current wind and solar capacity – but environmentalists warn that land grabbing will become more widespread as energy companies rush to produce renewable energy.
And although Beijing has set a series of ambitious goals around the Winter Olympics, green campaigners face enormous pressure in China if they challenge the official line.
Many told AFP they were not comfortable discussing Beijing’s environmental goals for the Games for fear of retaliation.
‘We got nothing’
In September, China announced stricter rules for compensation when land is acquired for ecological projects, including the development of green energy.
“Our land zoning (rules) also explicitly govern which agricultural land cannot be occupied, especially agricultural land,” said Li Dan, general secretary of the Renewable Energy Professionals Committee, which promotes green development.
“It’s a red line.”
If agricultural land is being used for renewable energy projects, there should be a profit sharing program like powering greenhouses, he said.
But many farmers are labeling agricultural fields as barren land to evade regulations, AFP said.
Xu Wan, a farmer from Zhangjiakou, lost his land because of a solar installation built during the run-up to the Games.
“The company told us it was unusable land, but it’s actually all very good agricultural land that we farmers use,” Xu said.
“They said they would give us 3,000 yuan per mu of land. But in the end, we got nothing.”
Zhangjiakou Yiyuan New Energy Development, which set up the solar project in Xu’s village, did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Chinese Academy of Engineering researcher Jiang Yi told a government industry news site that in the future, China will need 30,000-40,000 square kilometers of more land to meet its renewable energy needs.
“Where does the land come from has become the biggest issue hindering the growth of the industry,” he said.
‘Corruption is intolerable’
Last year, more than half of the new projects under China’s global infrastructure push-the Belt and Road Initiative- saw renewable investment.
Priyanka Mughal of UK-based non-profit The Business and Human Rights Resource Center, which has studied the impact of Chinese renewable investments abroad, said some developers were also accused of controversial practices when acquiring land overseas.
“The most prevalent issue was inadequate disclosure of environmental impact assessment (data) … followed by issues related to loss of land rights and livelihoods,” she said.
In order to reduce the conflicts that arise when occupying village land, China has billed most solar farms as poverty alleviation projects, where villagers get free electricity from solar panels installed on their roofs.
According to 2014 state guidelines, utility companies must buy back excess electricity in a program to lift two million households out of poverty by 2020.
The National Energy Administration said gains more than doubled that number last year.
But of the more than 300 homes in Huangjiao, only two roofs had solar panels, and villagers said there was no program to install solar panels.
“The government at the central level has good policies for farmers,” said Pai of Huangjiao village.
“But once it comes to the village level, things change. The corruption at the grassroots level is unbearable.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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