Jilin province is planning to invest RMB1 billion to recover the natural grassland and build artificial pastures in next 10 years.

The grassland in western Jilin province is one of the best grasslands in China. Many types famous livestock are raised here. But due to over grazing and land reclaimation for farming, the grassland is shrinking at a rate of 1.8% per year, and the degradation is at 3% a year. There is 2.14 million hectares of grassland in Jilin, of which 71,600 hectares have become useless. To stop such deterioration, Jilin province has adopted a plan of natural grassland conservation and construction. According to this plan, one forth of the degraded, desertified or alkalized grassland will be treated or recovered by 2010, including treating 65,000 hectares of sandy land and 206,000 hectares of alkalized land, also returning 816,000 hectares of farmland back to grass. A total of RMB1 billion will be invested in 10 years. Afterwards, the grass coverage in the grassland will increase to over 80%...