Soil Erosion is Reducing Crop Yields

December 17, 2002

The Erosion of the black soil in China's chief agricultural area, covering one million sq. km of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces as well as Inner Mongolia, has caused crop failures. It is one of the world's most fertile areas. Over the past 10 years, wind and water erosion has led to a loss of nutrients and the soil has thinned.

As a result, crop production in Heilongjiang dropped from 4.5 million tons to 2.5 million tons this year, despite the use of extra fertilizer.

PRC-GEF Partnership on Land Degradation

March 4, 2002

Asian Development Bank (ADB) convened a meeting of international donors to review a $1 billion+, 10-year program between Global Environmental Fund and China to combat land degradation and desertification. ADB and World Bank each expect to put in $500 million over the course of the project, and are interested in soliciting additional donations. Most of the money is loans, but there will probably be up to $25 million in grants and technical assistance. The project will be managed by the State Forestry Administration and is expected to be officially approved this October.

A team of international and Chinese consultants will begin in March, 2002 to evaluate needs and pick potential sites for pilot studies. They plan to produce a program framework, driven by Chinese evaluations, by June that will:
lay out general policies;
identify priority ecosystems;
include a prioritized list of possible investments; and
specify milestones, indicators, and outcomes.

Fertilizer Line to Debut in China

February 15, 2002

China's first automatic humic-acid fertilizer production line is expected to go into operation in Northwest China. This is China's only State-level agricultural high-tech demonstration area. The line is designed to produce 15,000 tons of liquid humic-acid fertilizer annually while; the second phase of the project will be capable of producing 100,000 tons of solid humic-acid fertilizer a year by 2003.

The project will cost US$29 million will funded by Chinese company and will also be supported by technology provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Water and Soil Conservation Research Institute of the Ministry of Water Resources.

There appears to be possible opportunities for foreign companies to cooperate in the project. The project been listed as a top priority in this Chinese Province. Experiments on 3 hectares of land in the Province indicate the fertilizer is effective for increasing production, improving soil quality and helping crops resist drought, flood, disease and cold. China drastically needs to reduce its dependence and overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides which have been causing massive environmental pollution and land desertification problems

Curbing Desertification in China

January 23, 2002

According to the Director of the State Forestry Administration, Zhou Shengxian, China has preserved more than 46.7 million hectares of afforestation and currently 16.55 percent of China's territory is currently covered by forest compared to just 8.6 percent in the early 1950s. Still the average of forest per person in China is only one fifth of the world level. China has about 400 million people affected by desertification of about 166.7 million hectares or approximately 18.2 percent of the total territory.

To combat these problems The State Forestry Administration (SFA) is set to implement the fourth phase of - China's "Green Great Wall," a 4,480-kilometre belt of forest spanning the country's drought and desert-prone northern areas. It is the world's largest ecological project and has succeeded in protecting over 60 per cent of China's more than 133 million hectares of cultivated land. Over US$ 6.7 billion will spent over the next 10 years to control desertification problems near Beijing.