Several video clips showing many areas across China where potatoes and other crops are “grown” on cement floors or even on basketball courts, have been making the rounds on the Internet lately.
It turns out that these are indeed false crops, and artificially constructed fields. Reportedly, some local authorities have recently constructed these false “fields” as a pretense to secure that their local farmland acreage match up to acquired quotes as stipulated by China’s regulations on cultivated farmland.
Local authorities in the areas where this was done reportedly hired villagers and security guards to dig soil nearby these fields with mechanical excavators and then construct these “fields”, knowing full well that these are temporary and fake, and that there are solid concrete floors below several areas or covered with tiles. On closer inspection it can clearly be noticed on some of the videos that the plants in the “fields” are half dead and wilted.
Chinese netizens initially thought this was some kind of experiment before realizing the real reason behind these so-called fields with wilted plants.
China’s central government declared agriculture as a priority in 2021, stipulating that the country must ensure 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares) of arable land, as reported by iNews. Establishing these false fields in unusual places is done to cope with inspections from higher authorities, and a deceiving system is being created from town to county and county district. It is reported that many farmland areas across China have been taken out of production to build factories, mines and many other types of industrial construction projects in recent times.
The video below can also be watched on the YouTube channel of “Spotlight on China” here.
Source: Spotlight on China video channel
Photo: Still from the YouTube video
