The rampant illegal occupation of arable land has yet to be effectively curbed although the total number of such cases uncovered in the past year has decreased compared with two years ago, officials from the Ministry of Land and Resources said yesterday.

More than 20,000 cases were dealt with involving nearly 330,000 hectares of farmland.

The message is that more harsh measures need to be taken if we want to keep no less than 120 million hectares of farmland by the end of 2010. The total arable land is now less than 122 million hectares.