Ministry of Agriculture Sets Priorities for Farmland Quality Management

Source: www.moa.gov.cn

On 27 Sept., the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) held the National Meeting on Formula Fertilization Based on Soil Testing and Farmland Quality Management in Nanjing, Jiangsu. At the meeting, MOA noted that efforts would be made to facilitate development of farmland resistant to droughts and floods in the next steps, which was led by systematic planning, underpinned by projects and guaranteed by supportive systems.

The meeting emphasized that the agricultural agencies at all levels must have a clear understanding of the situation, keep in mind a big picture, identify the position and approach, and set priorities to strive for new developments in farmland quality management under the existing systems. The priorities for now and the next steps should be as follows: first, formulate plans as a leading instrument based on the functions of agricultural agencies; second, ensure success of ongoing projects and make good plans of new projects to push forward the overall endeavor; third, give full play to the technical expertise of agricultural agencies on farmland quality management to strengthen development of technical patterns, standards and norms and improve the technical systems for farmland quality management; fourth, enable the supportive systems to provide guarantee and build the capacity of the specialized personnel for farmland quality management and conservation.

The meeting noted that priority should be given to two categories of projects at present: first, actively push forward the field project for increase of food production by 50 million tons; second, enhance and expand the project on improvement of soil organic matter. Efforts should be made to enrich the technical patterns, apply standardized management, strengthen demonstration, improve the implementation and demonstration effectiveness to ensure sustained and sound development of the projects and enable them to be new growth engines for farmland quality management.

(Date: 09:20 29 Sept. 2010)