Random, scattered shabby houses, muddy dirt roads, small parcels of farmland - this is how Yuan Xiangsheng's village looked 16 years ago.

But the picture has become just a memory for the 50-year-old village head of Nanzhanglou Village, in East China's Shandong Province.

Well-laid-out buildings have taken place of the dilapidated dwellings.

Tidy, wide asphalt roads pass streets and lanes and run between fields, with trees lining both sides.

The rearrangement of farmland has given additional patches to grow grain, increasing his income.

"All the changes come under a Sino-Germany Project of Land Consolidation and Rural Development in the village," Yuan said.

The project was introduced in 1988 thanks to the partnership of Ministry of Land and Resources and the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany.

In 1990, a development plan for the village was mapped out with the help of the foundation and local land and resource departments.

The village was divided into four areas for living, industry, education and entertainment and farming.

A total of 420 hectares of cultivated land were rearranged by filling and levelling, and scattered plots of farmland were made to join together.

"Through land consolidation, 700 mu (46.7 hectares) of cultivated land was added," Yuan said.

Residential areas were also replanned and 75 per cent of dwellings in the village were rebuilt or renovated.

Around 35 kilometres of asphalt roads were built between fields. "People's living and working conditions have been improved a lot," said Yuan.

More than 80 million yuan (US$ 9.7 million) has been injected into the project, Yuan added.

In the 1990s, the nation's land and resources authority started a nationwide programme to consolidate land to economize its use since the old land pattern caused problems in rural China.

These problems include too small fragmented parcels, too many field ridges, low or unsustainable productivity, incomplete road and irrigation systems and lots of unused marginal land or wasteland.

Nanzhanglou Village is among the beneficiaries of the programme.

The central government has planned more than 730 programmes of land consolidation in China and around 2.6 million mu (170,000 hectares) of arable land will be added under the plan.

Land consolidation is a must in a country where there is a large population but scarce farmland.

A survey of the nation's land resources indicates that per capita arable land is only 1.59 mu (around 0.1 hectare), less than half of the world's average.

The overall quality of the land is also very poor and yields are low. Land reserves are also limited.

With the increase of the population and rapid development of the economy, there is a large demand for land .

Feeding 22 per cent of the world's population with less than 10 per cent of the world's total arable land is an arduous task.

In recent years, the country's construction drive has cut into the amount of cultivated land.

Between 1999 and 2003, 13.97 million mu (930,000 hectares) of cultivated land was used for other purposes, representing 2.8 million mu (186,600 hectares) a year, according to statistics from the Ministry of land and Resources.

Through land consolidation, the amount of arable land was increased by 19.94 million mu (1.3 million hectares), which means there was an increase of 3.98 million mu (265,000 hectares) a year.

It is the nation's long-standing policy to value and efficiently use the land, said Vice-Minister of Land and Resources Lu Xinshe.

Land consolidation is an effective approach to promoting the sustainable utilization of land resources and rural development as well as increasing farmer's incomes, he said.

He said the Chinese Government highlights the protection and efficient use of land resources and has mapped out regulations to tighten land planning and push for the land arrangement.

First, laws and regulations must be improved, co-ordinated planning must be carried out, operations tidied up and technical support updated. International help through partnerships should be sought, Lu said.

Alarming land shortage

In fact, land consolidation is only one of the many important measures the government has taken as rapid urbanization increasingly puts pressure on the land.

According to the Ministry of Land and Resources, the total cultivated land area dropped to 123.5 million hectares at the end of last year from 130.1 million hectares in 1996.

A large proportion of that arable land was used in some 6,015 development zones and industrial parks. Only 1,251 had been properly approved.

Pan Mingcai, director of the Ministry's department of cultivated land protection, said the figures were alarming.

He said China needs a minimum of 124.7 million hectares of cultivated land to meet both present and future demand for produce.

"The surplus in grain production over the past several years has led many people to overlook the importance of protecting cultivated land," Pan said.

"Some areas have been used for construction and other purposes after being reserved for farming use only," he said.

Every Chinese province has compiled a programme outlining not only what land will be used for - such as construction or cropping - but also how much cultivated land will be reclaimed for other purposes each year, the Ministry said.

But the Ministry admits land use programmes have been ignored to varying degrees.

The shrinkage of farmland has affected the economy and food production, experts say.

Illegal land reclamation has triggered a number of social problems. In some areas, farmers have not been adequately compensated for lost land and are forced to stage protests.

A total of 3,175,587 hectares of farmland was converted back to forestry and plantations, a policy encouraged by the government for ecological benefits, and 545,606 hectares have been turned over to other agricultural uses such as fish farming.

Blind investment is encouraged by the misuse of land.

Construction remains the highest concern to the Ministry, because it can mean the permanent loss of farmland, said Meng Xiangzhou, an expert with the Chinese Academy of Land and Resources Economics.

To curb the problem, a new resolution to protect arable land was introduced by the State Council last month.

Governments at various levels have to take effective efforts to protect farmers' rights for land use, and improve the efficiency of land use in industrial and commercial projects, the resolution said.

Farmers who lose their land will be compensated.

The Ministry of Land and Resources says it is stopping the construction of buildings on allocated farmland by reducing the number of development zones by two thirds.

Meng applauded an ongoing campaign by the Ministry and several other government departments to review land use by various development zones and industrial parks.

"The point is the government should actually implement its land use programmes," he said.

Fan Zhiquan, director of the ministry's department of land registration management, said local inspections as well as remote sensing technology would be used to ensure farmland was not seized for construction inappropriately.

"Every change in land use should be authorized," he said.

If unauthorized changes in land use are detected, the ministry will co-operate with government departments to fine responsible organizations, while imposing administrative penalties or bringing the parties to court on criminal charges for those responsible, Fan said.

Fan said poor urban planning in many Chinese cities in the past means that some vacant land still exists and can be used in the future.