Ministry bans behaviors that reduce country's arable land

The Ministry of Natural Resources has banned forcibly uprooting trees and filling aquaculture ponds to return them for arable land during peak growing and harvesting seasons of fruit trees and fish ponds.

The ban was found in a notice released on June 14. The move aims to prohibit local natural resources departments from adopting one-size-fits-all approaches to pursue good data in their arable land coverage reports amid the national campaign of protecting arable land.

"Behaviors that pursue a balance in the arable land sheet at the expense of quality of the land will result in the loss of arable land," the notice said.

The ministry has urged local departments to maintain achievements in returning farmland to forests and grasslands and prohibits developing agricultural land on steep slopes that do not take into account the conditions of agricultural production and the environment.

For example, it prohibits the cultivation of arable land in slopes above 15 degrees in important water source areas and steep slopes above 25 degrees.

The notice forbids the cultivation of arable land in desert areas and areas with serious soil erosion, fragile ecology, severe pollution or any other conditions that would make it difficult to restore.

In addition, areas irrigated mainly by groundwater should not be developed with water logging projects.

Occupying plains with construction projects and supplementing mountainous areas as arable land are also banned.

The campaign requires protecting red lines of arable land and cracks down on illegal occupation of arable land and damage to the environment. Strict control of new urban construction is also required.

According to the national land survey, China lost 7.5 million hectares of arable land between 2009 and 2019.

The country must retain at least 120 million hectares of arable land to guarantee its food safety, according to the government.