Ministry Calls for Stopping Cutting Cultivated Land
As China's total cultivated land area decreased by 6.549 million mu (436,600 hectares) in 1999, effective measures should be taken to stop this situation, the Ministry of Land and Resources said.
Seven provinces and cities with declining cultivated areas received a "yellow warning card" from the ministry recently, and were forced to make efforts to compensate for the loss of arable land and ensure that their total cultivated land area does not continue to shrink this year.
An official with the Arable Land Protection Department under the ministry said that a total of 12.625 million mu of arable land in China was occupied for other use last year, and at the same time, 6.076 million mu of cultivated land was added.
China's Land Use Law, considered the strictest in the world, requires that all provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities must see to it that the amount of arable land under their jurisdiction does not decrease, and that land quality is improved.
