China
October 20, 2010

Source: Farmers’ Daily via Ministry of Agriculture

The implementation of the “returning grazing lands to grasslands” program is an important decision made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council based on the overall situation of the nation’s economic and social development. During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, an accumulated investment worth 9.319 billion yuan has been made by the Central Government in this regard; more than 30 million ha of grazing lands have been returned to grasslands, among which grasslands of 16.799 million ha and 15.6 million ha have been fenced for grazing prohibition and grazing land resting respectively; 10.409 million ha of degraded grasslands have been improved through resowing activities.

The program of returning grazing lands to grasslands is not only conducive to restoring grassland vegetation, improving grassland ecosystems, and safeguarding the nation’s ecological security, but also helps to speed up transformation of livestock production patterns in the grazing areas, enhance comprehensive productivity and production profits of the livestock sector, and increase the income of farmers and herdsmen.

Thanks to this program, grassland vegetation has been preliminarily restored, and the continuing degradation of grassland ecosystems has been basically curbed in the areas involved. According to the National Grasslands Monitoring Report 2009 issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, the monitoring results of seven provinces (autonomous regions) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps showed that the average vegetation coverage rate in program areas reached 64 percent, 12 percentage points higher than that in non-program areas, and the height of vegetation and the output of fresh grass and edible fresh grass in program areas increased by 36.2 percent, 75.1 percent and 84.1 percent respectively compared with non-program areas. In sum, implementation of this program has contributed to substantial improvement in the unique ecological functions of grasslands in terms of water source conservation, prevention of water and soil losses, and wind-breaking and sand-fixing.

Website: http://www.agri.gov.cn

Published: October 20, 2010