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State urges protecting crop lands
(China Daily by Tang Min)
Updated: 2004-02-28 00:45 China's land and agriculture authorities jointly
kicked off a campaign Friday to look into the status the country's basic
cultivated lands -- arable land supposed to be conserved under all conditions to
feed China's vast population.
Headed by the Minister of Land and Resources Sun Wensheng, the investigation
expects to discover just how serious the loss of basic cultivated land is when
it comes to construction, conversion to forests and pastures, or agricultural
restructuring.
Long Bin, a public information officer with the Ministry of Land and
Resources, described the probe as a major move by the central government to
ensure its "food safety.''
The ultimate goal of the investigation is to gain a clear picture of the
country's current cultivated lands to prepare for stricter protection measures
for the future, he said.
In spite of the country's current stable grain reserves, a drop in domestic
crop output for three straight years aroused considerable concern from the
central government at the end of last year.
That's when Premier Wen Jiabao vowed to take a series of measures to ensure
food availability and safety.
Most analysts believe that shrinking arable land is one major factor behind
the issue.
The Ministry of Land and Resources designated 108.9 million hectares of basic
cultivated land at the end of year 2001.
The ministry has indicated the country needs at least 106.7 million hectares
of cultivated land to feed its population, which experts predict will reach a
peak of 1.6 billion by 2050.
The stunningly fast economic development of the country has resulted in
expanding construction. In addition, some local departments have misunderstood
agriculture reconstruction and "returned grain for green'' as cutting crop
acreage.
As a result, the total area of cultivated land has dropped to 123.5 million
hectares at the end of last year from 130.1 million hectares in 1996.
What disturbs the two ministries most is some of the basic farmland has also
been transferred to other uses during the process.
Statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture indicate China harvested 450
billion kilograms of crops last year, less than the average 500 billion
kilograms output in the past decade.
Correspondingly, the country is under-supplied by 40 billion to 50 billion
kilograms of grain, and prices of some staple grains rose.
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