China spends an enormous amount of money on agricultural infrastructure, but a string of exposés in State media, government crackdowns, and "scared straight" meetings for rural officials reveal that spending is extremely bloated, consists mostly of showpiece projects, and nobody really knows for sure what's happening in the hinterland.
A China Central TV broadcast on April 14, 2026 got attention for exposing an extravagant complex built as a farmer training center in a Chinese county. CCTV journalists visited an 11-building "Jun'an County Modern Agriculture Public Practical Training Base" on a 9.2-hectare (137 mu) site sandwiched between a highway and an excavated hillside. The compound included swanky hotels, two apartment buildings for experts, office buildings, restaurants, a sports center with badminton courts and a fitness center, chess rooms, gardens, and decorative ponds, but no facilities or equipment related to agriculture. The small sign on the gate and a banner announcing a blueberry training were the only clues that these buildings were related to agriculture.
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| The Junan County Modern Agriculture Practical Training Center has been judged to be extravagant and underutilized. |
The plan for the project said it would provide practical training in agricultural technology, machinery, and growing crops and livestock as an implementation of national industrial policy. However, the CCTV report suggested that the center was much too large for the actual need. A list of events last year showed an average of about one training per month, usually for one day, including several trainings for communist party leaders. A Renmin University Professor called it a "face project."
The 700-million-yuan (over $100 million) project was mostly funded by debt, including a 368-million-yuan "special government bond" with annual interest payments of 10 million yuan that are supposed to be paid with profits from the project. When a reporter asked whether the facility duplicates a separate county meeting complex, an official from the county investment company replied that this one prioritizes "doing some training." The day after the broadcast, the Linyi municipal government announced formation of a multi-department team to investigate and rectify the center's financing.
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| CCTV reporter points to the sign on the gate as the only evidence of agriculture in the Jun'an County agricultural training base. |
Several days after the broadcast a Peoples Daily essay criticized the training center as a "vanity project" that prioritizes gimmicks over actual results. The essay's warning that governance by officials seeking to maximize their own prestige through such projects creates centrifugal motion may be an apt description of rural China.
This case is the latest in a series of corruption scandals in rural programs this year.
In January 2026, Central TV broadcast a slickly produced program that catalogued the crimes of former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian, who had been fired in May 2024 and was given a death sentence in September 2025. Tang's crimes included sponsoring failed agricultural "image projects" when he had been Governor of Gansu Province and hanging out in high-end hotels and restaurants--much like the ones shown in the Jun'an training complex. Tang's televised self-criticism was probably quid pro quo for the 2-year suspension of his execution and likely meant either as a warning to other rural officials to cease and desist such activities or to deflect attention from his real crime.
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| Former Ag Minister Tang Renjian confessed his crimes on TV |
On April 28, 2026, Tang's successor, Han Jun was quietly replaced as Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs without explanation after less than 2 years on the job. Unlike Tang, there were no public allegations against Han, a respected rural researcher. Perhaps Han was a sacrificial lamb to show that the Party is addressing corruption of rural officials. New Ag Minister Zhang Zhu began his tenure with a stern speech warning rural officials against corruption, lax work attitudes, and failure to benefit the public.
An investigation of a program to Construct High-Standard Farmland released by the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection Apri 17, 2026 found widespread corruption and malfeasance, such as diverting and misappropriating funds, rigged bidding, failure to supervise construction, and insufficient post-construction maintenance. Last year officials introduced a new plan to convert all farmland to high standard farmland, but official documents since then call for remediation of the high-standard farmland program, probably China's biggest food security policy measure.
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| Jiangsu Province Party Secretary investigated financial management of rural collectives, high-standard farmland, school lunch, and other programs in Nanjing and Yangzhou, and he posed for photos in June 2026. |
In May 2026 Chinese news outlet The Paper reported on its "shadow investigation" of high standard farmland in Jiangxi Province's Poyang County, suggesting that 2.85 billion yuan spent on 970,400 mu (65,000 hectares) amounted to "mere decorations." They found empty pump houses, rusted irrigation pipes not connected to anything, missing pumps that had allegedly been stolen, irrigation canals that were clogged or dug uphill from the water source, a transformer discarded on a roadside, and dry rice fields used to grow peanuts. The Poyang County agricultural bureau said it has identified 446 problems in high standard farmland projects built since 2017, and the bureau promises to fully rectify by the end of the year with another 40 million yuan in spending.
In June, the Ministry of Public Security said it had investigated nearly 2,000 criminal cases involving illegal use of arable land during the first 5 months of 2026. They include construction of "greenhouse-style structures" under the guise of agricultural facilities or parks; building livestock facilities; digging fish ponds; hauling away and selling a farm's fertile "black soil" and replacing it with ash from a blast furnace; dumping construction and mining waste on farmland; and building walls and gates around land parcels.
An essay by an anonymous rural researcher said the Jun'an training center scandal was the "tip of the iceberg" in mismanagement of agricultural funds. The essay explained the incentives that drive the creation of wasteful agricultural "image projects." Upwardly mobile rural officials maneuver to develop a project with a "wow factor" that impresses their superiors to gain prestige and promotions. Short of cash, rural officials partner with companies that have money and an interest in leveraging rural project participation into access to land for construction sites, mining concessions, government funds or endorsements that help their business. The provincial or central government allocates funds and parcels of land to create a "showcase village." The usual result is a hollow agricultural operation that has no genuine business but is useful for hosting inspection visits by upper-level officials, journalists, and foreign visitors.
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| An agricultural project with "wow factor" in Anhui Province invested by Evergrande Modern Agriculture Group when now-dissolved Evergrande was China's largest property developer. Three agricultural subsidiaries lost billions of yuan before they were sold off. |
The rural researcher said his investigation of 42 "rural revitalization demonstration villages" during 2021-23 found that none of the government-funded agricultural projects initiated by the villages were genuine agricultural operations.
The researcher illustrated his point with the example of a village in Northwest China that developed a greenhouse vegetable industry during the 1990s run by small-scale farmers. In 2010 the local government sought designation as a "Provincial Agricultural Demonstration Park" and required the village committee to consolidate land into a large-scale operation. By 2014, the project had failed, and the local government recruited a large real estate company to take over operations. Crops were grown in just 2 greenhouses with no commercial business, simply to show off to government inspectors. Company management required that losses be no more than 5 million yuan annually, a manageable expense in view of possible earnings of 100 million yuan from real estate development projects.
"Rural tourism" projects became an ideal means for rural officials to team up with commercial companies to apply for government funds to create a splashy image project that masks real estate development or other ventures. Rural tourism creates village lodging and restaurants for city people to vacation in a rural setting with rustic food, good scenery, pick-your-own fruit, and fishing. The strategy meshes with Xi Jinping's "beautiful countryside" and rural revitalization mantras, and projects can be combined with other funding programs.
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| Rural tourism site |
The researcher said each of the 42 villages he studied had formulated a rural tourism development strategy, of which 33 had attracted investment from companies. But the market for rural tourism is limited and the downturn in the economy has softened demand, so the market is now saturated and many of the projects have failed. Only 2 of the 42 village rural tourism projects they studied had succeeded--and both were near cities. Villages in remote locations have a hard time attracting visitors.
The rural tourism campaign has created a glut of fake greenhouse structures that contain hotels, restaurants, or tea houses. They are disguised as greenhouses to justify use of arable land. The government has had three crackdowns on greenhouse-style structures (大棚房) built on farmland since 2018. Companies have adopted more covert approaches recently by developing agricultural projects under the guise of "educational study bases" or "wellness and healthcare centers" that are really disguised hotels and restaurants--again resembling the Jun'an training center project.
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| A tourism complex under construction inside a greenhouse. |
Despite the collapse of China's property market over the last several years, the researcher says local governments are still seeking fiscal subsidies to build rural tourism projects to create the illusion of a booming industry. He argues that this leads to a vicious cycle of low returns prompting more subsidies, generating more tourism sites, even greater losses, and more subsidies. He argues that the use of debt--such as the special bonds used to finance the Jun'an training center--drives local governments and village collectives into a spiral of debt. The research observed that 3 "rural revitalization demonstration villages" they studied were the most heavily indebted villages in their county.
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| A Xinhua cartoon from 2017 mocks officials who report fake statistics showing that farmers have been lifted out of poverty by livestock projects when the farmer is in fact still dressed in rags. It's surprising this cartoon still exists since poverty was officially eliminated in 2020. |
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