Some 5 million hectares of polluted or degraded farmland in China will be retired from production, with a resulting 2.5-percent drop in grain production by 2020, a state planning official told reporters in Beijing. Reuters reported that the official, Wu Xiao, said food security would not be affected by the downturn in production.
China is the world’s most populous nation and an agricultural power, as well as an important agricultural importer. It is the world’s leader in production of hogs, sheep and rice, and second in wheat, corn and cotton. The government has accumulated large stockpiles of cotton and grain, which allows action to rehabilitate polluted or degraded land.
Of the five million hectares that will be withdrawn from crops, two million were already targeted for rehabilitation over the past two years and the remaining three million hectares will be returned to forest or grasslands by the end of the decade, according to a government officials. The government also announced plans to improve soil quality and curtail over-grazing of grasslands.