BEIJING, China (Reuters) — China intends to map and document its most important cropland over the next three years, in an effort to ensure the country’s long-term food security.
Guidelines issued by the cabinet outline plans to demarcate 174 million acres of key “grain production functional zones” and “major farm product protection zones” within the next three years, the official news agency Xinhua reported.
That will include 99 million acres for rice and wheat production and74 million acres for corn, a document on the new guidelines from China’s State Council showed.
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The major farm product protection zones will include 16.5 million acres reserved for soybeans in the northeast and North China plain, including the area rotated with wheat, 11.5 million acres for rapeseed and 2.5 million acres for sugar cane in Guangxi and Yunnan province. An area of 5.7 million acres is set aside for cotton and three million acres for rubber.
After defining the land area to be included in these zones, the government will work to improve its output potential within five years.
China is now allowing some farmland to lie fallow to reduce huge stockpiles of grain and restore depleted soil. This is an unprecedented move for the world’s most populous country, which has long been preoccupied with guaranteeing food self-sufficiency. However, Beijing emphasizes that it will not jeopardise long-term food security.
Total agricultural land in the country is around 334 million acres, but the government has set a base line for cultivated land area at 306 million acres.
“The central government actually does not know the exact acreage of Chinese agriculture land … so this work would help to make sure China is above the 1.8 billion mu (300 million acre) base line,” said Ma Wenfeng, analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy.
According to the guidelines, the land would be registered and uploaded to a database and managed using advanced technology.
