Efforts made to save cultivated land
(China Daily by Tang Min)
Updated: 2004-02-25 00:28

The area of cultivated land in China decreased to 123.5 million hectares at the end of last year, from 126 million hectares the previous year, the Ministry of Land and Resources said Tuesday.

Pan Mingcai, director of the ministry's Department of Cultivated Land Protection, said China is facing the pressing task of preserving cultivated land to feed its population. In August, 2002, the ministry said the bottom-line was at "no less than 106.7 million hectares."

Against a backdrop of rapid economic development, the total area of China's cultivated land has been decreasing fast. In 1996, there were 130.1 million hectares of land cultivated.

In 2003, the largest portion of lost cultivated land, 4.1 million hectares were reclaimed for greening programmes. The second largest portion of 331,000 hectares went to other agricultural uses, such as aquatic cultivation and orchards.

Still, China's economic development maintained its high speed last year, which naturally resulted in expanded construction of various purposes. That year saw 229,000 hectares of cultivated land lost to construction projects, 17 per cent higher than the previous year.

Most provinces have managed to replenish some land for grain planting mainly by squeezing out more disposable land through better land use programmes or by enhancing land use efficiency. The total area of land for grain planting gained this way amounted to 311,000 hectares last year.

However, Mao Donglin, an official with the ministry said that the ministry is worried that the generally poor quality of these new cultivated lands might affect the country's grain output one day.

"We shall start a probe into the issue with the Ministry of Agriculture on Friday to ensure sufficient cultivated land of comparable quality will be replenished in the near future," said Mao.

For example, while 71 per cent of the cultivated land lost to construction projects is equipped with mature irrigation facilities, only 51 per cent of the new land is in the same condition.

Besides the investigation, the ministry is thinking of imposing a national standard classifying the country's land resources into various grades and preventing high quality cultivated land from being transferred for construction purposes, said Mao.

Widely criticized as a modern Chinese version of the "enclosure movement," more than 6,000 development zones and industrial parks have taken over vast cultivated lands from farmers for "construction purposes," only to leave them growing wild after development funds dried up.

Kicked off by a stern circular of the State Council on July 18, which suspended the approval of new development zones and industrial parks, a series of central governmental efforts have so far closed down 2,426 development zones and industrial parks, while another 294 were integrated.

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