Not without problems

In the mid-1980s, the system appeared to have exhausted its benefits as grain output hit a plateau. Also, because of China's large population and limited land, the land allotted to each household was tiny, about half a hectare per household.

"The small size of farms limited the use of advanced equipment," said Yan. "We decided to piece [farms] together, which never crossed my mind when we risked everything to divide them."

This time, "communing" is based on the farmers' own will. In 2003, the Rural Land Contracting Law spelled out in detail farmers' right to lease, assign, exchange and carry out other transactions on their contracted land, except sell or mortgage it.

The new law is aimed at encouraging the transfer of those rights to reduce the amount of idle farmland and increase large-scale, more efficient farming. The government has promised help for the development of large-scale farming by creating professionally managed cooperatives.

He Kaiyin, an expert on rural issues from Anhui, said it was reasonable to aggregate the land for better utilization, as much farmland remained idle and irrigation and other rural infrastructure deteriorated after farmers swarmed into cities.

About 60 percent of the village's 133.3 ha of farmland has been leased and re-divided into larger patches for industrial production of mushrooms, flowers, grapes or livestock.

Yan Deyou, once the head of Xiaogang Village, is now cultivating a 12 ha vineyard, which he said "can bring a profit 10 times that of grain farming."

He added: "This year, about 40 hectares of the leased farmland in my village have been pooled to grow grapes, which has facilitated centralized management and made it easy to fertilize, water and remove pests from the land."

In 2007, the per capita annual income in Xiaogang exceeded the national rural average of 4,140 yuan to reach 6,000 yuan.

"That could not happen if each family was still working on its small piece of land separately," said Shen Hao, the party chief of the Xiaogang Village.

"I really hope there will be some factories in the village," Chen Hongqing, Yan's wife, said as she lay in bed watching TV at 10 p.m. on Tuesday. "Then I could get something to do, and my son could work nearby."

China has taken measures to benefit farmers, including abolishing the agricultural tax and some school fees, and expanding health-care cooperatives and pension schemes. Even so, farmers are still poor.