Soil thickness increased

The neighboring province of Heilongjiang also saw remarkable effects after years of effort in black soil protection.

Monitoring data showed that the average thickness of cultivated land increased from 19.8 cm in 2014 to 23.3 cm in 2019, according to the provincial department of agriculture and rural affairs.

The department also said that the farmland cultivated by farms and large agricultural machinery cooperatives saw a recovery in growth.

Faced with the eroded black soil, Heilongjiang has taken different measures according to local conditions, including returning straw to the farmland, as well as increasing the amount of organic fertilizer and crop rotation.

Since 2015, the province has established 20 pilot projects on the protection and utilization of black soil, covering an area of 348,400 hectares.

In 2018, Hailun, a major grain production area in the province, was identified as a pilot county to promote the integrated system of black soil protection and utilization by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Over 33,300 hectares of farmland in the county became experimental fields managed by local governments to carry out conservational tillage, including promoting rotation farming of corn and soybeans, returning straw to the farmland and increasing the amount of organic fertilizers.

"All of the 133 hectares of farmland of our cooperative has been classified as experimental fields," said Liu Chunsheng, head of Dongxing Cooperative. "Thanks to integrated planning and management by the government, the yields from the farmland have increased significantly."

"Over the past years, farmers in the cooperative have seen their incomes increase by 14,000 yuan," he said. "More importantly, their awareness of protecting the black soil is growing stronger as they benefit from the improved quality of the land."

According to the Guideline on Protecting Black Soil in Northeast China (2017-30), by 2030, Northeast China's 16.67 million hectares of black soil will be better protected and see improvements to its fertility, ecology and farming facilities which will yield higher crop yields.

"To realize the sustainable use of black soil, it is necessary to focus on scientific research of black soil conservation, nutrient balance and conservational tillage," Han Xiaozeng, a researcher with the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said during a recent online seminar. "These research results can provide important support for maintaining the fertility of black soil and improving the overall grain yield."

Researcher Liu Xiaobing from the same institute suggested improving laws and regulations on arable land to urge land users to protect the black soil.

"Agriculture and soil and water conservation staff in the northeast region have explored some effective technical measures, but they didn't receive wide acceptance as some operators only seek to maximize economic benefits and lack an awareness of protection," he said.

"Therefore, special regulations on the protection of black soil should be introduced to solve these problems," Liu added.