◆ A 40% Rental Rate — Exploitation Disguised as "Self-Reliance"
Enterprises are eager to receive the land in order to secure their own food supply, but the arrangement requires them to hand nearly half of what they produce over to the state.
"Enterprises are competing to get the land, but the problem is that 40% of the output has to be turned over to the Forestry Management Office. There's apparently a clause saying everything will be confiscated if that condition is violated. On top of that, they're required to plant low-growing crops so as not to interfere with the trees, and the number of trees is verified during handover."
The reporting partner also explained the rationale behind the policy:
"The state is running national land improvement projects but has no money for seedlings or forestry operations. So they're selecting plots where young trees are still small, distributing them to enterprises, and using the resulting income to expand forest coverage."
The reporting partner concluded that the measure amounts to "the state simply finding another way to make money."
