Over 60,000 hectares of farmland in areas with serious water and soil erosion in north China's Shanxi Province have been planted with trees and grass to turn the problem around.

The ongoing project, part of an ambitious program by the Chinese government to develop the vast western areas, is crucial for the improvement of ecological conditions in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, experts in Taiyuan said.

Local officials announced that another 30,000 hectares of farmland will be used for planting trees and grass in the next three years.

Not only has over-cultivation of wild land in the province heavily damaged the ecology, the low yield of crops in some poor farmland did little to solve the region's food shortage.

High-yield farmland development in the area in recent years has to a large degree made it possible for some farmers to give up their own infertile land.

Farmers will be compensated for relinquishing their farmland, and the central government has instituted preferential tax policies related to agriculture in the areas involved, said officials.

According to the regulation in the province, all the farmland on slopes of 25 degrees must be returned grassland and forest areas, which will involve 98 counties in the province. (Xinhua)