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Eco-agriculture Benefits Millions of FarmersGreat changes have taken place on the black land of Baiquan County in Heilongjiang as a result of past 10 years' eco-agriculture construction.In China there are already as many as 200 counties like Baiquan going in for eco-agriculture construction to update their farm production. Back in 1993, a central eco-agriculture construction leading group was formed by the Ministry of Agriculture, State Forestry Administration, State Development Planning Commission, the Ministry of Technology, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Water Resources and State Environmental Protection Administration to guide the work of eco-agriculture construction in China. To develop China's eco-agriculture, the group saw to it that 51 eco-agriculture pilot counties were first selected. By now, the construction work has been popularized over an area of 100 million mu of farmland in the aforesaid 200 counties in 30 provinces, cities and national autonomous regions. Thanks to these, great economic, ecological and social benefits have been reaped. Eco-agriculture construction has accelerated agricultural and economic growth in the pilot counties. Statistics show that from over 6 billion yuan of investment made in 51 pilot counties in 5 years a total of 13.7 billion yuan of direct economic benefits had been wrested to show an input-output ratio of 1: 2.25. During the years 1990-1993, prior to eco-agriculture construction, the 51 counties had by their GDP, agricultural output value and farmers' income registered merely a 3.7%, 2.7% and 3.5% increase to show a 3.2%, 1.1% and 1.4% drop respectively when compared with others throughout China. Since eco-agriculture construction was carried out in 1994-1997, an annual 8.4%, 7.2% and 6.8% increase of these had been recorded to show a growth of 4.7%, 4.5% and 3.3% over those during the years 1990-1993. Eco-agriculture construction has also promoted high utilization of agricultural resources and consequent upon these is a remarkable improvement made in ecological environment. With soil desertification, water loss and soil erosion being put under control there has been brought about a 30.2% and 34.5% cut in the land area of soil desertification, water loss and soil erosion and an increase of 3.7 % of forest coverage in the 51 eco-agriculture pilot construction counties. A fact to be noted also is that eco-agriculture construction has raised people's awareness of eco-environment protection and that of the farmers to know the importance of ecological environment protection and scientific farming. Zhang Baowen, vice-minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, made a report at the eco-agriculture construction meeting called March 28 in summing up the achievements made in China's eco-agriculture construction. Advanced counties and individuals were also duly cited for their meritorious service in developing China's eco-agriculture.
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