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Beijing municipality has become the first area in China to announce the abolition of deep-plough farming methods in favor of environment-friendly conservation tillage.

The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the Beijing municipal government jointly announced the launch of conservation tillage on Monday.

Under an agreement between MOA and the Beijing government, both sides will invest 80 million yuan (US$10 million) to promote the conservation tillage methods to be used on more than 2.3 million mu (153,333 hectares) by 2008.

Conservation tillage is widely used internationally and involves modern planting methods, allowing plant waste to decompose into the soil as a natural fertilizer. The ground cover provided by the waste also prevents wind erosion.

Local officials believe the modern farming methods may help reduce sandstorms that plague Beijing every spring and improve the capital's environment before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Traditional deep-furrowing and harrow-ploughing cultivation methods have been challenged by environmentalists as the light soil grains are a major contributor to sandstorms.

Li Hongwen, a professor with the China Agricultural University, said the reason US farmers introduced conservation tillage methods in the 1950s was to reduce sandstorms.

Prof. Li said the environment-friendly method was a tillage planting system that caused less soil disturbance and maintained farmland cover to prevent wind erosion.

Tests showed that conservation tillage could prevent soil loss due to wind erosion by 50 percent. It was also estimated that the city could save about 100 million cubic meters of water each year for every one million mu (66,666 hectares) on which the technique was applied.

Zhang Baowen, Vice-Minister of Agriculture, said conservation tillage methods would gradually be promoted to other Chinese provinces.

By last year, conservation tillage had been piloted in 8.7 million mu (580,000 hectares) of farmland in 100 north China counties. The ministry planned to increase to spread the method to another 500 counties in the next five years.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), conservation tillage is regarded as a major development in international agriculture and will play a positive role in promoting sustained development in the next two decades.

The conservation tillage method is widely used on about 170 million hectares of farmland worldwide, about 11 percent of the total.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2006)