International scientists tackle common issues of black soil protection

It's been two years since the black soil protection law came into effect in China. The law aims to restore fertile land after decades of excessive reclamation and fertilizer overuse. CGTN went to one of the country's main grain production regions, northeast China's Jilin Province, to find out how scientists are fostering collaboration among countries to promote the sustainable use of black soil.

Black soil is the most productive carbon-rich soil on our planet.

In China, it's a particularly fertile land located largely in the northeast. The Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology in Jilin Province has been working at the forefront of black soil conservation and utilization for years. One of their latest projects is to get to the root of the issues.

Li Lujun, vice president of the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), said, "Considering the vastness of the northeast grain production region, soil conditions can vary from place to place. The most important task before anything else is to obtain the soil data and profiles through monitoring and evaluation."

The latest plenum of the Communist Party of China stated that Chinese modernization is based on harmony between man and nature. The importance of black soil cannot be overstated. It plays a vital role in food security, ecosystem health, and even climate change mitigation.

Since the law went into effect in 2022, China has been promoting conservational tillage. It also increased the application of organic fertilizer and adopted maize and soybean rotation planting techniques to protect black soil. These measures have gained increasing recognition from scientists in other countries.

"While I was here in Jilin Province, I've taken a lot of photos so that I can show my students black soil in China, and I can say, 'Look, it is very similar to our soil, we are all in this together.' And, in fact, the Soil Science Society of America and the soil science societies in China have been working together for the last several years to make sure that communication between the scientists is going on all the time," Professor Michael Thompson, president of the Soil Science Society of America, told CGTN during an exclusive interview.

As a platform for countries with black soil to discuss common issues related to the sustainable management of black soil, a global conference on black soil conservation and utilization was held in Changchun City, capital of Jilin Province, this week with the aim of gathering international wisdom and innovative theories and technologies for the conservation and utilization of black soil.

Jiang Ming, president of the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology under the CAS, told CGTN, "I think the reason why the conference has received widespread attention from international scientists is that we've demonstrated our competence in various applications and technologies for black soil conservation in the past few years. And we want scientists from other countries not just be told but see the development with their own eyes so that the solutions can be replicated worldwide."

"Such exchanges are strongly linked to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals," added Prof. Shahbaz Khan, director of the UNESCO regional office for East Asia.

By 2025, China plans to improve the organic matter in nearly 7 million hectares of black soil by 10 percent. It is willing to set up platforms where countries with black soil can join hands in the development of regional resources, environmental protection and food security.