8. Sustainable Development Of Agriculture
In 1990s, the Chinese government formulated a series of laws, regulations and plans of action, and made greater efforts to implement strategies for sustainable development and gave top priorities to sustainable development of agriculture. The government made great achievements through relevant activities.
8.1 Formulate plans of action for sustainable development of agriculture. According to the objective set up in the China’s Agenda 21 Century, the MOA prepared the China’s Agenda 21 Century - Plan of Action for Agriculture in 1998, coming up with a general strategy, key areas and capacity building for the development of agriculture. The plan of action serves as an important basis for the central and local governments to prepare, examine and verify programs and policies concerning agricultural and rural developments, and guidance for agricultural development in the immediate future and for a long period of time.
8.2 Protect basic farmland. The Chinese government has always attached great importance to land resources management, and emphasized farmed lands as a basis for agricultural sustainable development and a guarantee for food security in the country. To this end, the government has revised relevant regulations on land management, promulgated the Basic Farmland Protection Regulations, and established basic farmland protection regions and the compensation system for occupied farmland. At the same time, the government has strived to improve environment quality of farmland through bringing under control pollution caused by application of agrochemicals such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers.
8.3 Develop eco-agriculture. Emphasizing the development of eco-agriculture, the Chinese government has launched 102 state-level projects for establishing eco-agriculture demonstration counties. In accordance with laws of ecology and eco-economics, those demonstration counties have implemented projects for eco-environment restoration, resources preservation and introduction of environmental friendly technologies through restructuring of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries. These projects have produced remarkable economical, ecological and social benefits in the process of harmonious development of economy and eco-environment, resulting in impetus to the rapid development of eco-agriculture nationwide. At present, there are over 300 counties practicing eco-agriculture on a trial basis. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has awarded seven of them with the title of Globe 500. These eco-agriculture counties cover a total area of 10 million ha.
8.4 Develop water-saving farming in arid areas. According to requirements for opening up new water resources and regulating water consumption in arid and semi-arid areas as well as in semi-humid areas subject to droughts, efforts have been made to introduce water-saving farming practices to these areas. It is necessary to adopt agricultural, biological and engineering measures for making use of precipitation to improve agriculture productivity and bring water and soil erosion under control. Up to now, China has established over 300 dryland farming demonstration bases. The vast arid areas in northwest, north and central China have developed a number of dryland farming practices through actively promoting water-saving faming according to local circumstances. Thanks to the adoption of modern dryland farming practices and water-saving techniques, agricultural water consumption in these areas has reduced by 30-50 percent and soil erosion by over 50 percent, playing an important role in improving agricultural productivity and eco-environment.
8.5 Develop renewable energy in rural areas. Thanks to the large-scale promotion of the introduction to rural areas of fuelwood-saving stoves, biogas and solar energy, the proportion of bio-energy consumption has reduced by a big margin. At present, about 189 million households have adopted fuelwood-saving stoves, and 8.5 million farm households have made use of biogas-generating pits. Up to now, completed have been more than 1 000 large and medium-sized biogas projects, 80 000 projects for making use of effluents from daily life to generate biogas, 400 demonstration projects for central biogas supply by making use of straw and stalk to generate biogas, and a large number of solar energy projects as well. All these projects have contributed to alleviating the energy shortage in rural areas and bring deforestation under control to effectively protect the eco-environment.
8.6 Reinforce establishment and protection of grassland. Efforts have been made to establish and protect grassland by means of cultivating pasture, aerosowing and dry-lot feeding. The adoption of contract-based grassland responsibility system and the system for paid use of grassland have given initiatives to herdsmen to effectively protect and establish grasslands. As a result, problems like blind land reclamation, excessive grass cutting and digging, overgrazing and ecological deterioration have been brought under control to a certain degree. At the present, the area of grasslands managed under the responsibility system and the paid use system has exceeded 134 million ha. or some 50 percent of the national total of the available grasslands in the country. Furthermore, owing to the demonstration projects for developing pastoral areas carried out in 190 pastoral and mixed pasture-farming counties (banners), the production and living conditions in these counties have been improved. These demonstration projects have played significant role in expanding vegetation coverage, checking the wind and fixing the shifting sand, protecting the eco-environment and maintaining the ecological balance.
8.7 Enhance management of fishery resources. The initiatives of fishermen are mobilized to protect resources and develop production by means of enforcing the Fishery Law to the letter and issuing water surface use certificates for aquaculture. Fishing licenses are issued to control the intensity of the inshore fishing; the development of pelagic fishing encouraged; a fee-collection system and releasing of fish fries adopted to increase fishery resources; the system of fishing sanatorium period and non-fishing areas instituted to protect rare aquatic animals and plants, and the proper utilization of fishery resources promoted.
