Northeast Black Soil Protection and Utilization Pilot Officially Launched

Northeast China is one of only three major black soil regions in the world. The grain output of the four provinces (regions) in Northeast China accounts for 1/4 of the national total, making it the "ballast stone" of national food security. In recent years, due to long-term high-intensity and overloaded utilization of the black soil, while crop yields have increased, it has also brought about problems such as black soil loss, declining farmland fertility and soil microbial activity, as well as soil impoverishment, acidification, salinization and pollution, seriously affecting the sustainable development of agriculture in Northeast China and our country's food security. To do a good job in the protection and utilization of black soil in Northeast China, the path should highlight "control, increase, protect and nurture", and strive to achieve the goal of "three improvements": by 2020, the farmland fertility in the project areas should be raised by more than 0.5 grades, the soil organic matter content should be increased by 0.5 percentage points, and the thickness of the cultivated layer should be increased by more than 10 cm.

In 2015, the central government made a special arrangement of 500 million yuan to support 17 major grain-producing counties in Northeast China in carrying out black soil protection and utilization pilots, so as to implement the major task of protecting and improving farmland quality.