The Chinese government suspended reforestation efforts of marginally salvageable land today due to a fear of food shortages according to a senior government official source.
Ironically, the need to forgo a major environmental project due to the urgent need for crop production to feed the world’s largest population shows the key problem in the world’s larger cities, that as cities expand they take up more land that needs to be used for crops leading to further destruction.
Deputy Head of the ministry of land and resources in China Lu Xinshe stated that China was close to the bare minimum of farm land that the 120million hectare red line dictates the country needs in order to be considered self-sufficient in terms of food production.
However, while China has been forced to give up on its current environmental reforestation plans, Xinshe said that the government will not focus on any other emergency plans to provide for more farmland.
Food scarcity still concerns the giant nation as many of the older generation in China still remember the famines that stuck China in the 1960s that resulted in the death of anywhere between 15 million to 40 million people.
With food scarcity the number one concern in China, the country is left to battle CO2 emissions from factories by planting trees which has helped China decrease by 1% of the ‘red line.’ To keep on the positive side of the line, Prime Minister has pledged to increase spending on agriculture by 20%.
Outside of China, many Chinese companies have invested in farmlands outside of the country in Kazakhstan, Laos, Philippines, Russia, and Laos. Additionally, there are about a million Chinese farmers working on biofuel crops in Africa.
