Program pushes rotation of crops

About 130,000 hectares of farmland in China was left fallow last year in a pilot program designed to reverse ecological degradation in some rural areas and promote sustainable development of agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Friday.

In addition, the crops on another 670,000 hectares of farmland were rotated to improve farmland fertility and reduce the use of chemical fertilizers, Zeng Yande, chief for the ministry's department for plant supervision, said at a news conference.

The amount of land to be left fallow or rotated will keep increasing for the next few years and is expected to exceed 3.33 million hectares by the end of 2020, he said.