Free to use image from pixabay. After the floods that ruined the central to southern parts of China in 1998, Beijing launched the “Grain for Green program” (or “returning farmland to the forest program”) to address the problem of soil erosion due to deforestation. Under the program, rural households were compensated for their farmlands, which were converted to forestland. As a result of the program, China’s forest cover has increased from 8 percent in 1960 to today’s 21 percent. However, the well-praised program has been slowly reversed since 2020, with forestland being converted into farmland to boost grain output. As rainy seasons increase soil erosion and cause increased flooding, some Chinese citizens have turned to social media to voice criticisms, sharing videos of felled forests and severe soil erosion in newly developed farmland. Below is one widely shared video showing how newly developed farmland near the hillside was destroyed in a storm: 夏天暴雨来临，退林还耕新开的梯田毁于一旦！ pic.twitter.com/SaSPVGiwRb — 新闻调查 (@xinwendiaocha) May 7, 2023 As summer rainfall came and newly developed terraced fields, which were converted from forestland to farmland, were ruined. Under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping, ensuring the country’s food security has been one of the top goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). His phrase, “Chinese people’s rice bowls must always be held firmly in our own hands with Chinese grains in them,” became the guiding principle of the country’s agricultural policy. Amidst increasing concern over geopolitical risk triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tense cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan, the food security crisis has been magnified. At the past National People’s Congress (NPC) opening in March, the outgoing Premier Li Keqiang said that China would boost its grain output by 50 million tonnes in 2023 and build storage centers for emergency supplies of daily necessities. Although China’s total grain output — up to 686.53 million tons in 2022 — could fully feed its 1.3 billion population, it remains the world’s biggest food importer. In fact, the country’s food consumption self-sufficiency ratio has decreased from 93.6 percent in 2000 to 65.8 percent. The ruling party considers this trend a food security crisis. To address the crisis, China is set to boost annual grain output, with 103 million hectares of the total 120 million hectares of arable land dedicated to grain production. It will also bolster its seed sector, strengthen the rural governance system, provide billions of subsidies to revitalize the agricultural sector, and more. To meet the target, the country has to increase the farmlands available for grain production. However, most farmers are not incentivized to plant grain as cash crops such as fruit trees and flowers are more profitable. Hence, local governments are resorting to political campaigns and coercive measures to convert land for grain output by enforcing rural management of lands armed with new local law enforcement teams known as “nonguan,” who are interfering in countless aspects of rural life and livelihoods. In the past few months, farmers shared videos showing how their cash crops, such as fruit trees, have been uprooted to make way for grain fields. The following footage came from Zhejiang province: 浙江，种了3年的毛竹要全部被砍了退林还耕！疯了！ pic.twitter.com/2ae5FhopRw — 新闻调查 (@xinwendiaocha) April 28, 2023 In Zhejiang, the bamboo trees were planted for three years, and now they had to be logged down in order to convert the land to farmland. This is crazy! Another video shows that the “green wall” built to block sandstorms near Harbin city has been uprooted: 难怪北方多省沙尘暴频发，“绿水青山”不要了，改要“粮食安全”…… 视频【退林还耕：砍伐防护林】 https://t.co/rmrWysA688 pic.twitter.com/ZyIOmzSIk9 — 章立凡 Zhang Lifan (@zhanglifan) April 30, 2023 No wonder the sandstorms in northern provinces occurred so frequently. Giving up the “green water and mountain” for “food security”… Video from “Returning forest to farmland: chopping down the ‘green wall.'” Since China has less than 10 percent arable land, with some of it appropriated for non-agricultural purposes, including storage space, car parks, village houses, farms for livestock, roads, and bicycle lanes, parks, and green spaces, some local governments are looking to hilly areas for new opportunities, under the campaign slogan “Planting Rice fields Up the Hill” (水稻上山). One upland rice project occurred in Yunnan, with about 30,000 hectares of forest land converted to terraced fields for growing upland rice.