China Continues Ban on Crop Stalks Burning

As the summer harvest approaches, China is reminding its farmers to heed the ban on crop stalks burning.

Officials from State Environmental Protection Administration, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Science and Technology said at a meeting Sunday in Shijiazhuang, capital of north China's Hebei Province, that farmers should continue the nationwide ban on crop stalks burning.

Officials said that the burning of large amounts of crop stalks not only pollutes the air, but also affects the normal operation of trains, buses and planes.

Burning of crop stalks would be banned this year especially on both sides of 13 expressways, including the Beijing-Shijiazhuang, Shanghai-Hangzhou and Xi'an-Baoji ones, and of some rections of the Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Shenyang railway lines.

Officials said that air quality in the cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Shijiazhuang has improved thanks to the prohibition of crop stalks burning, and fewer fires have been reported.

Of the 600 million tons of crop stalks China produces every year, 100 million tons are turned into manure and returned to the farmland, 170 million tons are processed into fodder, and the rest are either burned or cast away.

People's Daily Online --- http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/