Straw houses bale out builders looking for cheap resources

The challenges of meeting the most basic human needs for food and shelter are magnified beyond comprehension when it involves 1.3 billion people. Yet the central government is forced to address such a situation, especially in mainland rural areas where grain production is being jeopardised by the growing need for housing - combined with already substantial pressure from developers to build golf courses, resorts and condominiums.

With clay bricks the most widely used building material and rural land usually the most convenient source of clay, swathes of farmland are being destroyed. In 1999, the central government decided to curb clay brick production. The scheme initially covered coastal provinces, and this year is being extended to encompass key cities in the west.

According to a China Daily report, the mainland has saved about 60,000 hectares of farmland in the past two years by phasing out the use of clay bricks in 170 cities, and the National Development and Reform Commission aims to extend the ban to all provincial capitals by the end of next year.

Premier Wen Jiabao recently ordered a further crackdown on the illegal use of farmland to stop encroachment on agricultural land.

The usual alternatives to clay bricks are concrete and steel, but since 1998, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (Adra) has been implementing an option more in tune with the environment and the technology available in remote areas: straw-bale housing.

Adra (China) managing director Arthur Schwarz says the technique was born out of pioneering necessity in the US sand-belt plains of Nebraska in the late 1800s. 'Grass sod used in other places was out because the soil was too sandy, and timber too scarce. So they made do with what they had,' he says. And what they had was lots of straw.