Two of the most barren areas of China's west are experimenting with the
sustainable development of agriculture with help from the Italian Government.
The two experimental bases, located in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Uygur
autonomous regions, both receive financial and technical support from Italy.
The Sino-Italian programme, which began in January, aims to enhance
agricultural food security in China while decreasing the use of non-degradable
plastic film, chemical fertilizer, pesticides and water resources.
"After trickle irrigation, application of biodegradable film, and reduction
of fertilizer use, the tomato biomass witnesses a jump," a mid-term report about
the base in Inner Mongolia said.
The base in Xinjiang has seen similar results.
In addition, the report states the moisture utilization efficiency of tomato,
cushaw and Chinese cabbage is higher than traditional planting methods when the
Italy-supported biologically friendly technologies are applied.
Encouraging news also comes from the Xinjiang base where a combination of
trickle irrigation and biodegradable film helped shorten the crop growing season
by around a week.
"The results are amazingly favourable even though we find the biodegradable
film is easy to burst and expensive. So we are doing further research to
localize the technology," said Zhu Liucai, deputy manager of the Sino-Italian
programme.
Zhu said more work will follow to examine the technologies' effect on produce
quality by next March, when the programme ends.
"The Chinese Government has always given priority to agriculture, and places
increasing emphasis on its sustainable development," said Luo Gaolai, a senior
official with the State Environmental Protection Administration.
"Only if our product quality meets the international standard can we seize a
share in the global agriculture market," said Luo, who is head of the Foreign
Economic Co-operation Office under administration.
"Organic food is bound to have a bright future in China," he added.
He said China aims to boost the production of organic food by five to 10
times in five to 10 years.
Currently, organic food accounts for no more than 0.1 per cent of China's
food market, far less than the world's average of 2 per cent.
China's rural areas are now suffering from serious pollution due to the
irrational use of chemical fertilizer, pesticides, manure and non-degradable
film as well as over-irrigation.
The programme for sustainable agriculture is among a number of initiatives
co-launched by China and Italy for China's environmental protection, covering
such sectors as biodiversity conservation, air quality monitoring and clean
energy.
This month, Italy signed an agreement with the Ministry of Science and
Technology to jointly tap solar and geothermal energy in Southwest China's Tibet
Autonomous Region.
"A co-operative project on the application of hydrogen energy in automobiles
will soon start up in Shanghai," said Corrado Clini, a senior official of the
Italian Ministry for Environment and Territory.
