The mainland's 'black soil' region - which contains the most fertile land for cultivation - could disappear within 50 years if efforts are not taken to address water and soil erosion, experts warn.
Covering an area of 117,800 square km in northeast China, the black soil region is one of the country's main production bases, producing 10 billion kilograms of grain each year. But experts from the Ministry of Water Resources have now warned that the black soil land's days could be numbered.
Xinhua quoted statistics from the Ministry of Water Resources saying 37.9 per cent of black-soil land had suffered soil erosion. The experts said the problem of soil and water erosion arose because of 'human activities and natural disasters'.
Along with Liaoning province, Heilongjiang and Jilin suffered serious flooding in the summer of 1998. Although abnormal weather was partly to blame, experts then warned that rampant deforestation, uncontrolled use of water resources and lack of protection of wetland were the real culprits behind the heavy flooding of the Songhua and Nen rivers in 1998.
Environmentalists have pointed out that disappearance of the black soil not only affects food production, it would also threaten the livelihood of the millions of farmers in the region, signal a deepening of the environmental crisis in northeast China and further precipitate climatic changes.
Rich in organic materials, black - or chernozemic - soil offers high farm yield. According to environmentalists, black soil cannot be replenished and the exposed land often quickly becomes sand once the topsoil is exhausted.