Industry damaging arable land
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Large amounts of China's arable land have been wasted as a result of industrial usage such as exploitation of mineral resources, Chinese authorities said Saturday.
A report issued by the Chinese Land and Mineral Resource Law Center at an in-ternational forum in Beijing Saturday said that with the development of industrialization starting from the 1950s, nearly 200 million mu (13 million hectares) of land have been wasted, accounting for over 10 percent of China's arable land.
Zhu Liuhua, director of the farmland protection department at the Ministry of Land and Resources, pointed out at the forum that in the last 30 years, the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization has led to a surge in the number of mining-related land waste, and most of this land does not get recultivated.
"About 70 percent of damaged land is farmland or other agricultural land. Most of these lands are at good locations, near cities or villages, with good transportation and water resources," he said.
Zhu said Sunday that farmland recultivation regulations have been in place since 1989, but many enterprises do not take them seriously and supervision by authorities is lax. He said the ministry has been trying to upgrade the status of the regulations to that of an ordinance since 2001, and the government is examining the content of the draft law.
The amount of arable land in China is now dropping dangerously close to what Premier Wen Jiabao has called the "red line" of 1.8 billion mu(12 million hectares), below which the country would face challenges sustaining food supplies for its population.
Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that there was 1.82 billion mu of arable land in the country last year. The figure for 2010 is estimated at 1.818 billion mu and predicted to drop to 1.805 billion mu in 2020.
The report by the law center said that the rapid growth in scale and speed of construction, especially after the 1980s, has resulted in a "predatory" phase on natural resources.
It said the reclamation rate of arable land wasted due to digging, cave-ins and other human activities is just 15 percent.
The report said that the government conducted most land reclamation projects with public funds, while mining enterprises only paid a small part of the cost. It added that the lack of a legal system and funds have hindered land reclamation efforts.
Zhu said that a drop in the amount of arable land means an increase in the number of farmers who have lost their land.
"It will have a great influence on development in rural areas and local residents' lives, further affecting the economy's sustainable development," he added.
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