Illegal trade in rich black soil from Heilongjiang is robbing farmers in China’s cereal food bowl of a future
- Poor farmers in northeast China are selling the soil from under their feet at dirt cheap prices
- The industry emerged many years ago but the province has yet to roll out a regulation against the theft of the scarce resource
There may not be gold in their fields, but some farmers in northeastern China have found the soil in their backyard is offering them easy money.
Black soil, one of the most fertile soils in the world, has become a target of illegal exploitation and has been sold as a commodity elsewhere in the country, state media has reported.
Hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of black soil in Heilongjiang province, a key part of the most important cereal grain production area for the world’s most populous country, has been dug up and sold by local traders, according to a series of reports by state news agency Xinhua.
Instead of growing crops, some villagers in the province’s Shangzhi city have leased their farmland to traders either for them to dig up black soil or dry the soil dug from elsewhere.
A farmer named Xu Qinhua from a village called Tailai said the price ranged from 50 yuan (US$7.70) to 80 yuan (US$12.35) for each cubic metre, but would be much more expensive when it reaches the south and is packaged into smaller batches, Xinhua reported yesterday.
The soil, some of which was dug up from just behind his neighbour’s house, could be sold for about 4 yuan (62 US cents) per kilogram after arriving in the southern provinces, Xu said.