The reclamation area of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China, after stopping reclamation of wastelands, has strengthened the protection of the ecological environment and blazed a trail of developing green agriculture. So far, 50 products have been marked as green foods by the State. The reclamation area of Heilongjiang on October 8 signed over 40 contracts valued at more than 800 million yuan with a batch of Chinese and foreign enterprises on developing green foods in Beijing.
This reclamation area is one of the unique three black earth belts in the world. In the early 1950s, China decided to develop this area in order to tackle the problem of grain shortage. After 50 years of efforts, the former barren land has become a land of granary. While the farmland is expanded here, its ecological environment is destroyed too. As China's agriculture has entered a new stage, the reclamation area has brought up a new idea of protecting the ecological environment and developing green agriculture.
In recent years, the reclamation area has intensified afforestation, the area of artificial afforestation has increased at an annual rate of more than 200,000 mu (15 mu = 1 hectare) after stopping the opening up of barren lands. It has preliminarily formed a "green curtain" which can support the sustainable development of agriculture in this area.
While attaching importance to protecting the eco-environment, the reclamation area has led the country in establishing a green food management system and comprehensively launching production and development of green foods, which has yielded handsome economic, social and ecological benefits.
(People's Daily 10/09/2000)
