December 27, 2007

China to transform more land for grain production

China, in efforts to augment grain output, has been trying every means to increase arable land as rapid industrialization and urbanization eats up large land areas.

By 2006, the country's arable land area shrank by 8 million hectares, or 6 percent, to 121 million hectares against 130 million hectares in 1996.

Last year, the central government said China needed a minimum of 120 million hectares of arable land to grow enough grain to feed the country.

Zou Yuchuan, China Land Science Society president, said the country should also find means to increase its agrarian land by looking into salina land near lakes, rivers and eastern coastal regions.

He cited the successful transformation of 6,600 hectares in eastern Shandong Province wherein a barren salina area had been transformed into fertile and high-yield land for crops such as cotton. 

China has also been striving to increase arable land through comprehensive treatment measures of current land resources. This includes the transformation of low-yield crop fields and reclamation of abandoned agrarian land.

Figures indicate that the country had carried out more than 700 land treatment projects since 1999 with an investment of RMB5 billion (US$680 million). This supplemented a total of 800,000 hectares of agrarian land.

China's grain output was 490 million tonnes last year and is forecast to surpass 500 million tonnes this year.