Farming is nothing new in Fuxin, but what made the experiment a hotly debated issue across China is how the 15 farms set out to absorb retrenched workers from coal mines and state-owned companies living in the city. About 4,000 workers had already been working on the farms by the end of the last year, and Jianbala Village alone had attracted 560 retrenched workers to date, with the figure expected to rise to 1,000 by the end of the year, said Huang Yukui, the village's party secretary and top official.

There is no questioning the need for resource-based cities to restructure their economy and create jobs, but many experts, and even Fuxin residents themselves, have questioned the city's strategy - a sign of just how contentious the route to economic recovery has become. Critics saw Fuxin's experiment as a bewildering and ""abnormal'' reversal of China's economic progress, in which the norm is for farms to give way to urban centres or factories, and for farmers to become workers, not the other way round.

Fuxin officials defended their experiment by saying that the 15 farms were not engaged in traditional farming, but rather modern agriculture. Furthermore, it was only one aspect of their 15-year economic restructuring plan, which also involved developing light industries and the service sector. But there is a sense of quiet optimism in the centre of the stormy debate in Jianbala Village, where the first of the 15 farms was set up in 2001 to cultivate mushrooms in economically built greenhouses.

Mr Huang told The Straits Times: ""Back then, we decided to set up greenhouses and adopt more modern farming techniques only in response to the drought in Fuxin. No one said anything about diversifying or restructuring the economy then.'' When Mr Li Lanqing, then Chinese vice-premier, visited the village in March last year, he was surprised to find 18 retrenched workers employed in the farms. He then asked local officials if it was possible to set up more of such farms and create jobs for some of the city's 156,000 unemployed workers. Retrenched workers like Mr He said he was sceptical at first, but after a visit to the farm, he was sufficiently convinced to invest close to 20,000 yuan (S$4,200) to buy tools, mushroom spawn, and rent a plot of land at the Jianbala Village where he was taught how to grow vegetables and cultivate mushrooms in the greenhouse.

""The workers can earn about 8,000 to 12,000 yuan a year here, depending on the sales of their mushrooms,'' said Mr Huang, the village's party secretary. ""They might not even earn a single cent had they stayed in the city.'' Experts pointed out, however, that the experiment with modern farming should only play a small and temporary role in Fuxin's restructuring plans, and not as a long-term solution. They added that the farms could not absorb as much excess labour as new factories, and there was a limit to how many farms the city could set up - points readily acknowledged by Mr Huang.

He said that only about half of the land in the 257 ha village had been devoted to the modern farms, while the remaining area was been earmarked for construction of new factories in light manufacturing. Mr Huang added: ""We can only develop the farms to a certain scale, after which we would have to develop light industries. That's the direction all the other villages are heading towards. But really, there is no set path or precedent for us to follow. We are still trying to find a way out for Fuxin's economy.''

Initial efforts seem to have paid off, if official figures released in March are anything to go by. Fuxin's GDP last year reportedly grew 20.4 per cent, the highest growth rate in Liaoning province. Other resource-based cities like Fushun are keeping a close watch on developments in Fuxin, though it is apparent that they cannot hope to duplicate the same strategy.

But whether or not Fuxin's experiment in the 15 farms succeeds eventually, the mindset change in people like Mr He is significant in a city where workers still pine for the predictability of a job with the mines. Mr He said: ""It's up to me to make it work. We just can't go back to the old days anymore.'' ' - Published in The Straits Times on 20 Sep 2003. [PART 3]