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August 07, 2015

07/08/2015: China takes action to modernise agriculture


On Friday, the Chinese central government released a guideline to make agriculture more intensive and environmental friendly, in their quest to secure an adequate and safe food supply.   
The guideline was issued by the State Council and seeks to transform production by dissuading dependency on resources and mass labour, as well as improving the use of advanced technology and skills of farmers.
Photo courtesy of citelighter.com

The government aspires to achieve a visual improvement to modern agriculture by 2020 and strong progress by 2030.

The farming boom in China has lasted for more than three decades, with output constantly rising. The nation takes pride in the fact that they feed more than a fifth of the world’s population on only 10 percent of the world’s arable land.  

However, over-exploitation and primitive farming have burdened farmland. For example, in a major grain area in northeast China, crops are suffering from falling fertility due to the reduction of layers of black soil land from 100 centimetres to 20 centimetres. 

"Agriculture faces increasing challenges and risks and it is an urgent need to transform the production model," said Ye Xingqing, head of the agricultural economy department of the Development Research Centre under the State Council.

The new guideline has vowed to find new, creative approach to industrial chains, subsidise modern farms, make loans obtainable to agricultural businesses and educate farmers to take advantage of technology.

For a sustainable sector, the country will stop increasing their use of fertilisers and pesticides by 2020 to reduce soil pollution and promote the consumption of organic food, and pilot cyclic utilisation of agricultural waste.  
Photo courtesy of nature.com

These measures are expected to upgrade the agriculture, turning it into a sector, which can be sustained and will keep its high yield simultaneously as to satisfy the exponential food demand from an enormous population. 

It has been forecast that the Chinese will consume 50 billion kilograms more food in 2020 than it did in 2010.

Read more HERE.
 

The Global Miller
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