GUANGZHOU, March 13 -- South China's Guangdong agricultural pollution control project, funded by the World Bank, was launched on Thursday.

The project aims to prevent pollution from "non-point" sources; water and air pollution from many different sources. Specifically, the project will reduce pollutants from crop and livestock production.

The 1.32 billion yuan (220 million U.S. dollars) project, to be completed by the end of 2018, is partly financed by a 100 million U.S. dollar loan from the World Bank and a grant of 5.1 million U.S. dollars from the Global Environment Facility.

Environmentally friendly crops will be planted on 280,000 mu of arable land in 30 townships. Three cities will experiment with livestock waste management before the practice is taken up over the whole province.

The 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) calls for control of pollution from crop production and lists targets for two key water pollutants - chemical oxygen demand (COD) and ammonia - both related to agricultural pollution.

It is estimated that COD will be reduced by 45,000 tonnes and ammonia by 5,000 tonnes by 2018.