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Ministry's Project to Save Fertile Farmland
The Ministry of Water Resources is launching a 4-billion-yuan (US$484 million) project to stop the deterioration of Northeast China's fertile farmland, according to Chinadaily.
Starting next year, the ministry and the Heilongjiang and Jilin provincial governments will invest in a project to halt soil erosion in the region, which is regarded as the "bread-basket" of the country.
Northeast China's fertile farmland is one of the three largest areas of rich topsoil in the world. The region has 11,780 square kilometres of fertile topsoil, which produces 10 billion kilograms of crops each year.
But a recent Ministry of Water Resources investigation revealed that soil erosion in the area is steadily increasing.
Without urgent conservation measures, the farmland could be destroyed in the next 50 years, the ministry said.
Erosion in Northeast China has already destroyed 4,470 square kilometres of land, 37.9 per cent of the total area.
The hardest hit area has been cultivated land along hills. Heavy rain has carried off most of the fertile hillside topsoil.
Ministry statistics indicated that annual erosion in the area is between 0.3 to 1 centimetres. Since the 1950s, when the rich topsoil was up to 70 centimetres deep, the topsoil has decreased to less than 30 centimeters deep.
In some areas the topsoil has been completely washed away.
The investigation showed that even organic substances in the topsoil are decreasing at a rapid pace. The ministry said the loss of organic substances in the topsoil over the past 40 years has cost the country up to 1 billion yuan (US$120 million).
Ministry experts said they feared that Northeast China's fertile topsoil would disappear if immediate steps were not taken by the government to reverse the course of erosion.
Soil erosion has had a devastating effect on the region.
In 1998, flooding along the Songhua and Nenjiang rivers caused more than 80 billion yuan (US$9.6 billion) in damages.
Rapid erosion has silted the rivers, narrowing navigation routes and endangering local dams.
Erosion has reduced the area's navigable passages from 1,500 kilometres to less than 800 kilometres.
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