40% of Cultivated Land Has Degraded in Quality, Soil Remediation Urgently Needs to Be Accelerated
Because of long-term heavy use with little replenishment and extensive farming methods, China's cultivated land quality is currently severely degraded, with degraded areas accounting for more than 40% of the total cultivated land area. Wan Lianbu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and director of the National Engineering Technology Research Center for Slow/Controlled Release Fertilizers, suggested accelerating the advancement of soil improvement and remediation projects to ensure the sustainable development of agriculture.
Wan Lianbu said that in recent years, the problem of cultivated land quality in China has become increasingly prominent. Organic matter in the black soil region of Northeast China is declining, soil acidification in the South and East is worsening, the trend of shallower topsoil in North China and Northeast China is obvious, the problem of secondary salinization in the Northwest and along the Yellow River irrigation areas is relatively prominent, and land pollution problems exist.
“According to statistics, the soil fertility contribution rate to the yields of China's three major grain crops is 52%, about 20 percentage points lower than that of European and American countries, so it is inevitable that food security must be guaranteed by increasing agricultural inputs. China uses 1/3 of the world's chemical fertilizers and produces 1/5 of the world's grain. Developing agricultural production on low-quality cultivated land faces multiple challenges in terms of environment and benefits.” said Deputy Wan Lianbu.
The government work report released on the 5th proposed to firmly uphold the red line for cultivated land, comprehensively carry out the designation of permanent basic farmland, implement actions to protect and improve cultivated land quality, advance land consolidation, and increase deep-loosened land by 200 million mu.
Deputy Wan Lianbu suggested accelerating the implementation of major projects to improve the comprehensive production capacity of cultivated land. He suggested establishing a special fund for cultivated land quality construction, and from different levels such as improving soil, building soil fertility, retaining water and fertilizer, and pollution control and remediation, promoting the protection and improvement of cultivated land quality. Promote technologies such as integrated water and fertilizer management, deep application of chemical fertilizers, and straw return to the field, and promote the application of new fertilizers or soil remediation products such as slow/controlled release fertilizers, water-soluble fertilizers, bio-organic fertilizers, and soil conditioners. Accelerate the completion of cultivated land fertility surveys and quality evaluations, improve the cultivated land quality monitoring and early warning system, and establish a national big data platform for cultivated land quality.
At the same time, improve the target assessment system of governments at all levels, establish and improve the management system for cultivated land quality protection in agricultural departments, and ensure that cultivated land quality construction measures are put into practice. Improve relevant systems and regulations. In response to the phenomenon of occupying superior cultivated land and compensating with inferior land, improve the compensation mechanism for cultivated land construction; in the face of the new situation of land transfer, incorporate quantitative indicators of cultivated land quality into land management right certificates, and establish a reward and punishment mechanism for cultivated land quality maintenance in land transfer. Improve the investment mechanism and shared responsibility mechanism for cultivated land quality protection, and effectively strengthen cultivated land protection.