Farmer Yang Shaoyong now doesn't have to worry that his crops
will be afflicted with drought as a water conservancy pool near his
farmland can collect enough water from rainfall for irrigation.
A year ago, with the aid of the local government, Yang built a
water conservancy pool capable of holding 100 cubic meters of water
on his farmland, which helps solve the problem of water shortage
for irrigation.
"Before, the crops did not grow well because of lack of
irrigation water. Now, the farmland yields more thanks to the
pool," said Yang, who lives in an arid and mountainous village in
southwest China's
Sichuan Province.
In the past five years, the province has built more than 1.6
million water conservancy pools to benefit 1.5 million farmers,
said a top provincial water resource official.
"But there are still 660,000 hectares of arable land that lack
irrigation in the province, resulting in a loss of 500 million
kilograms of grain per year," the official said
Statistics from China's Ministry of Water Resources show the
area of farmlands affected by drought in China hit an average of 20
million hectares per year, which lead to a reduction of 28 billion
kilograms of grain output annually.
To tackle water shortage for irrigation, China will build more
than 17 million irrigation works in the rural areas of the
northwestern, southwestern and northern parts of the country by
2010, where annual rainfall can reach 250 millimeters, according to
a new five-year plan for water resources use from the ministry.
In addition to irrigation works for collecting rainfall,
water-saving irrigation has become increasingly popular among
farmers in central China's
Henan Province.
The farmlands with water-saving irrigation have hit 500,000
hectares over the past five years in the province, which can save
about 1.7 billion cubic meters of water annually, said Wang Tieniu,
deputy director of the provincial department of water
resources.
"The province will speed up efforts in the coming five years to
build and rebuild more water-saving irrigation works in its
poverty-stricken and drought-hit areas," he said.
According to the new five-year plan for water resources use,
China plans to increase its water-saving irrigation areas by 10
million hectares by 2010, said Minister of Water Resources Wang
Shucheng.
(Xinhua News Agency March 16, 2006)