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Wednesday, March 21st, 2018

Millions of Chinese farmers reap benefits of huge crop experiment

Author:     David Cyranoski
Source:     nature
Publication Date:     07 MARCH 2018
 Link: Millions of Chinese farmers reap benefits of huge crop experiment
Stephan:   China with the largest population on earth is reversing years of mimicking Western cultures, particularly the United States, and is reversing course  and explicitly trying to create an "ecological civilization." Part of that change means China is stopping the practices of the U.S. agriculture system which was set up to serve the financial interests of the agricultural chemical robber barons. This is what is happening.

Rice farmers in China increased their crop yields when they adopted new evidence-based farming practices.Credit: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/REX/Shutterstock

A landmark project to make agriculture more sustainable in China has significantly cut fertilizer use while boosting crop yields on millions of small farms across the country, researchers report in Nature1.

As part of a decade-long study, scientists analysed vast amounts of agricultural data to develop improved practices, which they then passed on to smallholders. Through a national campaign, about 20.9 million farmers adopted the recommendations, which increased productivity and reduced environmental impacts. As a result of the intervention, farmers were together US$12.2 billion better off.

The scale of the project has stunned international scientists. With the global demand for food expected to double between 2005 and 2050, they hope that the study’s lessons can be applied to other countries. “This is an astonishing project of a scale way beyond anything I am familiar with,” says Leslie Firbank, who studies sustainable intensification of agriculture at the University of Leeds, UK.

Charles Godfray, a population biologist at the University of Oxford, […]

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