How China’s farmland-reclamation campaign is driving aggressive crop expansions and land-use crackdowns
- Increasing the acreage of major foodstuffs has become a central priority for Chinese leadership in ensuring that enough food is available in the face of worrisome threats
- But an aggressive acreage expansion is raising questions over soil sustainability and the earnings of farmers forced to grow essential crops instead of lucrative ones
Tucked between a hillside village and a highway in eastern China’s Zhejiang province lies a vast field growing one of the world’s most important oilseed crops.
Thin and tall rapeseed plants – from which canola oil is derived – span about 60 hectares (148 acres) of newly reclaimed farmland in suburban Hangzhou. And in each of the field’s four corners are piles of hog manure waiting to be applied as much-needed fertiliser.
It wasn’t that long ago when part of this field laid idle while another portion was divided up for use among villagers to grow vegetables and garden plants. But in the past year, the entirety of the field has been contracted to a local agricultural company to grow grains and oilseeds under a government-led initiative.
For Fang Xueyong, the company’s owner, it wasn’t a profitable deal, at least not in the short term. For starters, he pointed to the land’s suboptimal fertility after having gone years without fertiliser that supplies crops with nutrients and improves the soil structure.
“Productivity will be 30 per cent lower than in my other fields,” he said, “but the government wants to increase the acreage of major foodstuffs, so we just responded to the call.”
The agricultural undertaking is part of a nationwide farmland-reclamation campaign that has been rolled out to support greater crop yields at a time of rising food insecurity, owing largely to strained ties with the West and the effects of the Ukraine war.