“The PRC accounts for
about 8% of the world’s arable land but has to feed about 20% of the world’s
people,” said Yaozhou Zhou, Senior Water Resources Specialist of ADB’s East
Asia Department. “With the PRC’s population expected to reach more than 1.4
billion by 2030, the country’s future food security hinges on using scarce
water resources more efficiently and making farming more productive.”
Funds for the
Comprehensive Agricultural Development Project will improve irrigation and
drainage in about 117,000 hectares of land in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and
Anhui, Heilongjiang, Henan, Jilin and Yunnan provinces. The provinces
collectively produced more than 28% of PRC’s total grain output in 2008.
Irrigation systems in
PRC cover less than half of total arable land, and many are dilapidated because
of poor maintenance, while poor drainage has left more than 24 million hectares
of cultivated land waterlogged. Soil fertility has fallen because of overly
intensive farming and excess salinity in some areas, while poor seed quality, a
lack of modern farm machinery, and insufficient investment in farm-to-market
roads all weigh on productivity.
Along with irrigation
and drainage upgrades, the project will finance measures like land leveling,
soil testing, fertilizer application and windbreak trees to reduce soil
degradation and increase fertility. Assistance will be given to repair farm
service roads, promote the use and distribution of high quality seeds, and to
purchase modern farm machinery. Training in modern, environmentally friendly
agricultural techniques will be given to farmer groups, with capacity building
support provided to provincial and county offices implementing the project.
The target is a more
than 30% increase in grain output in Anhui, Heilongjiang, Henan and Jilin
provinces from 2009 levels by 2020, and an 11% increase in average per capita
income for farmers from 2010 levels by 2020. The improvements are expected to
benefit more than 1.2 million rural people in about 500 villages.