China will strive to keep its dwindling supply of basic farmland at
the level of 106.6 million ha (263.2 million acres) to secure food
production, says Lu Xinshe, vice-minister of Land and Resources.
China's 126 million ha of farmland would shrink slightly owing to
its accelerating pace of agricultural restructuring, urbanization
and ongoing efforts to return some farmland to forestry and
grassland to improve the environment, the deputy minister said on
Wednesday.
He
made the remarks at a just-concluded national conference on land
and resources planning held in the port city of Dalian in Liaoning
Province, northeast China.
In
2001 alone, China turned 590,000 ha of its arable land into
forestry and grassland to curb soil and water erosion, and lost 44,
000 ha of farmland in agricultural restructuring.
But it was vital for China's 1.3 billion population that enough
farmland was kept to maintain a high proportion of self-
sufficiency in grains in normal years and secure food production,
said the deputy-minister.
Under Chinese law, other uses for land zoned as basic farmland is
not allowed without the approval of the central government,
including industrial and other non-farming development.
(Xinhua News
Agency July 19, 2002)