Beijing municipality has become the first area in China to
announce the abolition of deep-plough farming methods in favor of
environment-friendly conservation tillage.
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the Beijing
municipal government jointly announced the launch of conservation
tillage on Monday.
Under an agreement between MOA and the Beijing government, both
sides will invest 80 million yuan (US$10 million) to promote the
conservation tillage methods to be used on more than 2.3 million mu
(153,333 hectares) by 2008.
Conservation tillage is widely used internationally and involves
modern planting methods, allowing plant waste to decompose into the
soil as a natural fertilizer. The ground cover provided by the
waste also prevents wind erosion.
Local officials believe the modern farming methods may help
reduce sandstorms that plague Beijing every spring and improve the
capital's environment before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Traditional deep-furrowing and harrow-ploughing cultivation
methods have been challenged by environmentalists as the light soil
grains are a major contributor to sandstorms.
Li Hongwen, a professor with the China Agricultural University,
said the reason US farmers introduced conservation tillage methods
in the 1950s was to reduce sandstorms.
Prof. Li said the environment-friendly method was a tillage
planting system that caused less soil disturbance and maintained
farmland cover to prevent wind erosion.
Tests showed that conservation tillage could prevent soil loss
due to wind erosion by 50 percent. It was also estimated that the
city could save about 100 million cubic meters of water each year
for every one million mu (66,666 hectares) on which the technique
was applied.
Zhang Baowen, Vice-Minister of Agriculture, said conservation
tillage methods would gradually be promoted to other Chinese
provinces.
By last year, conservation tillage had been piloted in 8.7
million mu (580,000 hectares) of farmland in 100 north China
counties. The ministry planned to increase to spread the method to
another 500 counties in the next five years.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), conservation tillage is regarded as a major
development in international agriculture and will play a positive
role in promoting sustained development in the next two
decades.
The conservation tillage method is widely used on about 170
million hectares of farmland worldwide, about 11 percent of the
total.
(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2006)