President Xi Jinping underlined on Thursday the importance of bolstering the protection and quality of farmland and tapping into the potential for exploiting saline and alkaline soils as part of broader efforts to beef up agricultural production and ensure China's food security.

▲ A harvester competition, to boost efficiency, was held in Tuqiao village, Bozhou, Anhui province. [Photo by ZHAO YANLIN/FOR CHINA DAILY]

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, stressed the need to build up the nation's potential for grain production through farmland protection and better agricultural technology during a meeting of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs.

Xi, who is head of the commission, underscored that food security is a major issue for the nation and farmland is the crucial resource for food production.

The meeting, attended by Premier Li Qiang, who is deputy head of the commission, heard reports from departments including the Ministry of Natural Resources and the National Development and Reform Commission.

Its participants highlighted prominent issues such as farmland being used for nonagricultural purposes, saying that China could face more arduous tasks in protecting its farmland.

The policymakers called for concrete steps to beef up the protection of farmland, including steps to ensure that officials can assume their due responsibilities, so that China's total area of farmland does not fall below the red line of 120 million hectares.

All-out efforts must be made to improve the quality of farmland and truly transform farmland, especially permanent basic cropland, into modern and productive fields that are suitable for cultivation, resistant to droughts and floods, and capable of achieving high and stable yields, they said.

The meeting urged steps to reform the system ensuring that farmland used for nonagricultural purposes can be properly substituted, while highlighting the imperative need to stimulate the enthusiasm of farmers and local authorities with regard to protecting farmland and grain production.

The nation will build a mechanism that can ensure the yields of crop farmers, including encouraging them to conduct large-scale operations in various forms, said a summary of the meeting.

The policymakers also pledged to strengthen the management of abandoned farmland in order to ensure its proper use, while actively developing nontraditional farmland resources.

The meeting highlighted the renovation and development of saline and alkaline soils as an important part of farmland protection and improvement.

As of 2021, China had around 99.1 million hectares covered by saline and alkaline soils. The policymakers noted that farmland in some regions were increasingly becoming salt-affected.

The meeting, which adopted a guideline for promoting the comprehensive use of saline and alkaline soils, called for stronger steps to improve saline and alkaline soils and curb the trend for farmlands to be harmed by soluble salts.

It also stressed the need to conduct a comprehensive survey of saline-alkaline land resources and formulate overall plans and specific implementation schemes, and region-specific improvement of such land.

The nation must extend food production to various kinds of saline and alkaline soil, accelerate the creation of new saline-alkaline tolerant crop varieties and promote effective practices for improving such soil, the meeting's summary said.

Reporter:  Xu Wei