With over 1/5 of the world’s people but only 7% of the world’s arable land, China needs its land to be very productive. Yet according to the group PERC, socialist policies begun in the 1940’s that nationalized agriculture has led to half of China’s land becoming severely eroded. A successful new program, however, is paying farmers cash or grain to plant tree seedlings or grasses on previously farmed or barren land, and thus stabilize the soil of highly erodable areas. In just its first 6 years, 55 million acres have been converted to forests and grasslands, and the hope is that increased property rights may lead to even longer-term success in recovering China’s land.