By Margaret Vuchiri

Innovative solutions spearheaded by a province in China, have turned its fortunes around, thanks to irrigation and tree planting in the desert area.

For a province that has vast tracts of desert land and is ranked third in development among China's five autonomous provinces, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, located in northwest China, has registered remarkable progress. Statistics from China's premier website www.china.org.cn indicate that Ningxia is the province with the third smallest GDP in China, with its neighbours, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, classified as the strongest emerging provincial economies in that country. And yet for a casual Ugandan visitor, Ningxia's capital, Yinchuan, would be one of the most developed and well planned metropolises with very good road network- compared to Kampala, of course.

As a largely arid region, Ningxia's transformation is mainly attributed to the province being China's principle supplier of wolfberries— a fruit this region regards a treasure, accounting for 42 per cent of the entire nation's total wolfberry production. At the Research Institute of Lycium Barbarum in Yinchuan, there are large plantations of wolfberries and grapes, grown mainly for medicinal purposes and producing wine.

Mr Wang Ling of Ningxia's Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Animal Husbandry, says the region's development path is hugely determined by agriculture.

"The Yellow River (for irrigation purposes) is very important for us, for our plants and for our animals," says Ling, adding that the achievements they have so far made would not have been possible without sustained anti-desertification campaigns such as tree planting.

One such project is a paper industry base whose raw materials come from a vast tree-planting scheme in a desert area in Zhongwei City. Started in 2001, the Meili Group that manages this project has been able, in the last 11 years, to turn large portions of this former desert into an expansive Greenland, supported by constant irrigation from the Yellow River.

中国宁夏带头进行技术创新，采用先进灌溉技术，在沙漠中植树造林，改变了周边地区的命运。

宁夏回族自治区位于中国西北部，这里有着广袤的沙漠地带，发达程度在中国五大自治区中排名第三。近年来，宁夏的经济有着显著的增长。中国网的数据显示，2011年宁夏的国内生产总值（GDP）在中国各省市中排名倒数第三。然而，宁夏与相邻的内蒙古自治区、陕西省同被划为中国最强的新兴省级经济体。对于来自于乌干达的游客来说，宁夏的首府银川市的公路交通十分发达，远超乌干达的首都坎帕拉，可称为中国发展最好、规划最完善的大都市之一。

由于这里气候干旱，宁夏实现经济转型的重要举措之一就是推广枸杞种植。枸杞被视为宁夏的瑰宝，宁夏是中国最主要的枸杞供应地，产量占全国枸杞总产量的42%。在银川市枸杞研究基地种植着大面积的枸杞和葡萄，这些果实的主要用途是药用和酿酒。

据宁夏农牧厅副厅长王凌介绍，宁夏的发展道路主要依靠的是农业。

王凌说：“黄河对我们来说至关重要，农作物的灌溉和畜牧业都离不开黄河。”他还说，如果没有持之以恒的植树造林和防沙治沙工程。宁夏也不可能取得现在的成就。

宁夏中卫市的美利纸业一体化基地就是这些工程中的一项，造纸的原材料取自于当地一个覆盖面积广大的造林工程。自2001年起，美利集团开始在这里植树造林，利用黄河水进行灌溉，用了整整11年，将原先的沙漠一步步改造成为不断扩大的绿地。