Myanmar farmers have been barred for five years from planting crops along the route of a Chinese oil and gas line and are protesting new requests by an affiliate of the pipeline company to take control of the adjoining land once restrictions end, according to an RFA report.

Completed in 2012, the pipeline built by the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and its Myanmar partner, runs from the port of Kyaukpyu in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to China’s southern city of Kunming.

Farmers in Ngape village in Magway division, through which the underground pipeline passes, have been barred since then from planting crops within 50 feet on either side of the line, but believed they would be allowed two years ago to plant again.

That date for the land’s return has now passed, however, CNPC affiliate the SEAsia Oil Pipeline-SEAsia Gas Pipeline Co. has applied for exclusive use of the restricted zone.