This year, reports of success have been kept pouring in from the Tibet Plateau: a survey indicates that a new high-yield record of 659 kg of winter wheat per mu has been arrested from the 10,000 mu of "winter wheat high-yield cultivation experiment and demonstration zone" in Nedong County; In the "spring qingke high-yield cultivation technology demonstration zone" , the per-mu yield of qingke, a traditional grain crop of Tibet, has exceeded 540 kg after several years of improvement.

Implementation of the experimentation and demonstration of high-yield grain crops over stretches of land is an important move taken by the Tibet Autonomous Region around the objective of achieving basic self-sufficiency in grain, oil and meat by the year 2000. Statistics indicate that except for the output of meat which had attained the goal of self-sufficiency last year ahead of schedule, the output of grain and rapeseed are still behind the goal of 1 million tons and 50,000 tons respectively. The policy-makers of the autonomous region have a clear understanding of this and are determined to seize the crucial period of this and next years, inspire enthusiasm and win victory in the decisive battle.

The Tibet Autonomous Region has set the targets for the output of grain, oil and meat to be achieved this year respectively at 920,000 tons, 40,000 tons and 135,000 tons. The region has planned for the infrastructure construction of agriculture and animal husbandry, which takes the comprehensive development of central river valley of the Yarlung Zangbo River and its two tributaries-Nianchu and Lhasa rivers, the State's key construction project, as the lead, and capital construction of farmland, water conservancy and grassland as the core. The project area of the Yarlung Zangbo River and its two tributaries this year plans to invest 120 million yuan for the continuation and construction of 31 projects, a batch of large and medium-sized key projects, including Chusum and Qiongguo reservoirs will be completed and yield benefits. In the first half of this year, various localities have obviously intensified their efforts for capital construction of farmland and water conservancy, transformation of medium- and low-yielding farmland, restoration and improvement of farmland irrigation area, the effective irrigated area of farmland and improved land area will be respectively expanded to over 2 million mu, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the total area of farmland. The region's actually sown area of farm crops reaches 3.46 million mu, of which tractor-plowed area and machine-sown area increased by 8.9 percent and 6.7 percent respectively over the same period of the previous year. Taking the development demonstration project in pastoral area as the lead, Nagqu, Ngri and Qamdo areas, having drawn experiences and lessons from the snow disaster areas in northern Tibet, have achieved new progress in the construction of four relevant aspects, including the enclosure of meadow, the covered pen of cattle, artificial growing of grass, and the settlement of herdsmen, of which the development and demonstration project area has newly built 300,000 mu of enclosed meadow, and artificially grown 24,000 mu of grass.

Rejuvenation of agriculture and animal husbandry through science and technology has quickened the development of the production of agriculture and animal husbandry. Taking the "seed project" as a breakthrough, the region has mainly popularized over 20 items of applied technologies, made combined and coordinated application in light of local conditions, so that science and technology produce the greatest benefits. Since implementation of the "seed project", a batch of improved varieties selected through experiment from over 6,000 domestic and foreign farm crops have been popularized. The successful popularization of "Bei Qing No.3" and other improved varieties has played a significant role in ending the low-yield situation in Biru, Maizhokunggar and other frigid counties, per-mu yield is higher than local varieties by 200 percent and 15-20 percent respectively. The dozen varieties of imported forage grass produce a higher grass output and has a strong adaptability are expected to become the leading variety of Tibet's fodder. The animal husbandry has mainly popularized a number of applied technologies in the improvement of grassland and breeding stock. At present, the region has a total of 460,000 head of improved and selected animals in stock.

The region has successively built a batch of bases (counties) for the development of agriculture and animal husbandry. Since the beginning of this year, to deal specifically with the situation in which infrastructure construction for agriculture and animal husbandry is weak and the reserved strength is insufficient in Ngari and other places, the region has built and continued construction of eight development and demonstration counties, and counties ensuring the warmth and feed for livestock, including Geyai and Coqen counties, intensified the construction of over 20 grain self-sufficient and commodity grain bases and counties. A group of grain and meat production bases and counties, including Gyangze, Nedong and Damxung, have applied pressure on themselves and this year they have set targets for substantially increasing production, striving to make more contribution to the region's self-sufficiency in grain, oil and meat. In the first half of this year, the autonomous region set aside some financial resources to give priority support to a batch of base and county construction projects, it has made priority input of nearly 30 million yuan of funds, striving to ensure that agriculture and animal husbandry bases and counties will play a quicker and better leading and backbone role in the process of achieving grain, oil and meat self-sufficiency.

Photo:Pictured here is a corner of the market during the ongoing Tibet Shannan Barter Fair held in Tibet. As the local economy developing rapidly, the scale of the fair, always regarded as a festival by local Tibetan, is getting larger and larger.