A giant golden statue of Chairman Mao erected in Chinese crop fields at a cost of more than £300,000 has reportedly been destroyed by angry farmers.

A slanted photograph showing the statue partially gutted and with a hood over the head was published via Chinese site baidu.com days after images of the 36.6m-high likeness had been first seen around the world.

The statue was understood to have been completed in December after funding by local businessmen.

The Guardian quoted an unnamed local delivery worker as saying the statue had only recently been toppled.

I heard it was destroyed yesterday," the worker said. "I heard it was because it had occupied a farmers land.

The statue had been particularly controversial for its placement in central Henan province, a region in which many million died of famine under Mao's Communist rule.

The founding father of the People's Republic of China, Mao remains a largely revered figure in the country despite his severe policies being blamed for millions of deaths during his time in office from 1945 to 1976.

Henan province was hit hardest in the late 1950s in the Great Chinese Famine, referred to as the Three Years of Natural Disasters by Communist China, which is said to have accounted for up to 40 million lives.