Even as China’s coal-fueled factories belch toxic smoke, the biggest abuse of China’s environment comes from agriculture, says Time. The country is trying to solve the problem with some of the most radical changes to its agricultural policy since Mao Zedong forced the People’s Republic onto collective farms in the late 1950s—and 30 million people died of starvation as a result.
“The nation of 1.3 billion accounts for almost a fifth of the world’s population, yet boasts just 7% of arable land,” says Time. “Moderate to severe soil degradation affects more than 40% of the country, exacerbated by overuse of fertilizer, intensive grazing and the reliance on biomass for rural energy.” Most families have just a sliver of land, less than a hectare, and far too little to make a comfortable living. With more than 300 million Chinese expected to leave their fields for city jobs in the next 30 years, the Chinese government must figure out how to ensure food security with little land and a dwindling agricultural workforce.
To boost efficiency, the country is experimenting with feeding livestock insects to raise their protein intake and reduce the need for antibiotics; breeding wasps that feed on the eggs of crop pests; and raising fish in the Gobi Desert using well water. Some farmers are rearing their pigs on thick beds of microbe-infused rice husks and sawdust, so that their feces quickly converts to compost.
Meanwhile, the World Bank is leading a project to restore degraded land along the Yellow River, over an area the size of France, by better managing animal grazing, planting crops in a terraced design and giving local community members land ownership rights so they have an incentive to keep up the improvements. The government is also at work on a rural contract law that will allow farmers to lease their land for the first time to larger, consolidated farm operations.
Innovation aside, China knows it needs to hedge its bets. The country has already gone outside of its borders to help secure enough food to feed its tremendous population, purchasing Australia’s largest dairy, more than 324,000 hectares of farmland in Argentina and several billion dollars worth of soybean-processing plants in Brazil.
The risks are high for China’s farming future, says Erlend Ek, an agriculture expert at the China Policy research firm. “There could be massive social unrest if they screw up [their own] agriculture industry.”