Equal emphasis should be placed on protecting the eco-environment and improving agricultural efficiency and increasing farmers' income, said NPC deputy Wu Jianhua, who is also director of the agricultural department of Fujian Province, east China.

"Though we already have related laws and regulations such as the Environmental Protection Law and Agricultural Law, we still need a specific law on protection and agricultural eco-environment for more effective law enforcement," Wu said in an interview with Xinhua.

He called it a matter of urgency to make such a law and stressed that polluted agro-environment and farm produce are hampering the China's competitiveness on the international market.

With the rapid economic growth, China faces the challenges of huge pollution, insufficient resources and a deteriorating environment. The average per-capita acreage of farmland is only 0.11 hectares, accounting for less than 45 percent of the world's average; a deteriorating ecological system and rampant natural calamities are devastating some 40 million hectares of cultivated land a year, resulting in a loss of over 20 million tons of grain and 220,000 tons of cotton annually.

Industrial wastes, urban garbage and the wide application of farm chemicals and fertilizers contributed greatly to the deteriorating environment, said Wu, who is here attending the annual NPC session due to close Friday.

(Xinhua News Agency March 14, 2002)