The golf courses were found to be illegally using large amounts of arable land or nature reserve areas, or extracting groundwater in prohibited areas, among other illicit behaviors.
A survey published in 2014 estimated that 20 per cent of China's arable land was contaminated by decades of unregulated metal smelting, mining and fertiliser manufacturing.
CIC's investment in the holding company also belies the country's desire to have more control on its food imports as rising incomes, richer diets and a shortage of arable land and clean water are expected to push up China's agricultural imports in future.
Sea and moorland have been turned into green meadows, stretches of heather have become arable land, and in the shelter of the peasant's cottages, apple-trees and rose-bushes grow, though they certainly require much care, as the sharp west wind blows upon them.
