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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