Some Rice with Land

This article explains how China has been facing complications of developing a system that will create a parallel between producing rice and conserving wetland areas. This topic is very interesting due to the fact that the Chinese have prepared and used land along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers for food production for 5,000 years. The tradeoff is that China’s rice policy has increased its areas of rice planting, but has resulted in the loss of wetlands and contamination of rivers due to usage of fertilizers. To analyze the situation and propose a solution, a case study was conducted that investigated the Sanjiang Plain of Heilongjiang Province, which is the most important region of rice production. They focused on environmental laws and regulations in relation to wetland loss to observe if there was enforcement and if the policies accomplished their goals. In addition, they compared legislative approaches with an example of the U.S. approach to wetland management. In all, they concluded an ecoagricultural strategy should be adopted for agricultural communities to practice integrated and sustainable resource management for rice production. This is a very important issue because it affects the areas of China, and will ultimately affect the people.

Figure 1. The distribution of natural wetlands and rice planting areas in China are shown. Taken from National Bureau of Statistics of China and State Forestry Administration.

Reference

H. Chen, G. Wang, X. Lu, M. Jiang, and I. A. Mendessohn. 2015. Balancing the needs of china's wetland conservation and rice production. Environmental science & technology. 49:6385-6393.