From transforming salty land into paddy rice fields to revolutionizing crop yields with smart greenhouses, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has become a significant contributor to the country's food security and ecological sustainability.
In Pahataikeli Township of Kashgar, rice is thriving where once nothing could grow. Known as seawater rice, the crop tolerant of saline and alkaline conditions has turned barren land into fertile fields.
Duan Haoran, project manager of Xinjiang Zhongnong Haidao Biotechnology Company, said they have grown seawater rice for seven years in the township, where the soil was initially stark white due to salt-alkali crust.
After wild varieties were discovered in the southern coastal province of Guangdong, today's seawater rice strains are bred to survive in soil with high salinity and still produce a bumper harvest.
Duan said they collected the wild varieties, preserved them, and then used modern bio-breeding and hybridization techniques to create new, more stable seawater rice varieties.
With up to seven times more dietary fiber than ordinary rice, seawater varieties also create beneficial bacteria which help to improve the soil even further.
"Now salt-alkali crust is invisible on the land. Data show that salinity of the soil was 0.3 to 0.5 percent when we began to work here, but today it is about 0.1 percent," Duan said.
From just 0.13 hectares of experimental land in 2018, the project has expanded to a 667-hectare base with yields increasing by at least 48 percent.
However, for local families, the change is about more than the soil.
"By joining the seawater rice industry and leasing their land to us, villagers earn more every year. They have moved from being farmers to industrial workers and even to entrepreneurs," Duan said.
With close to 67,000 hectares of seawater rice already grown nationwide, the Xinjiang project is seen as a model for tackling saline soils far beyond this region.
Meanwhile, around 1,000 kilometers away in Changji, a new kind of farming is redefining what's possible above ground, with smart greenhouses turning science fiction into daily reality.
"The Smart Agriculture Science and Technology Pavilion is a showcase of China's achievement in agricultural development. The facilities here are highly automated, controlling the temperatures, humidity and light the plants need," Yan Ji, director of the Smart Agriculture Science and Technology Pavilion at the Xinjiang Agricultural Expo Park.
The plants are grown in multiple layers without soil, using substrate and hydroponics. The constant climate control allows harvests almost year-round, leaving crops unaffected by Xinjiang's harsh winters or scorching summers.
"Compared with field plants which are vulnerable to climate and environment and whose growth period is also relatively long, greenhouse plants feature a shorter growth period, higher production and higher quality," Yan said.
Thanks to the adoption of advanced technologies, what once took 70 days to be ripe in the open field can now be ready in just 25 days.
Yan said the base is also engaged in updating its facilities so as to spread the technologies far beyond this single site, according to Yan.
"In the future, this place will also serve as a research and development base, with the facilities to be optimized. Then, first, second, and third generations of products will emerge in succession," Yan said.
Northwest China's Xinjiang contributes to nation's food security with seawater rice, smart greenhouses
