{"id":57929,"date":"2018-02-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/blog\/turning-desert-sand-into-farmland-chinese-scientists-propose-a-revolutionary-solution-to-desertification\/"},"modified":"2021-03-29T08:04:06","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T06:04:06","slug":"turning-desert-sand-into-farmland-chinese-scientists-propose-a-revolutionary-solution-to-desertification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/turning-desert-sand-into-farmland-chinese-scientists-propose-a-revolutionary-solution-to-desertification\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning desert sand into farmland: Chinese scientists propose a revolutionary solution to desertification"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"bold-list\">\n<li>The ecological time bomb is about to explode<\/li>\n<li>An eco-friendly paste with unique properties<\/li>\n<li>From dead desert land to thriving ecosystem<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Desertification, when fertile land dries into desert, is a global problem. <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.ba\/books?id=mR3E4xJFNw0C&amp;pg=PA78&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">According<\/a> to Dr Steffen Bauer, an ecological expert at the <em>Deutsches Institut f\u00fcr Entwicklungspolitik<\/em>, as much as 40 per cent of the world is \u2018dryland\u2019. And that puts much of it in danger of desertification. Surprisingly, though fragile, these areas hold roughly 44 per cent of the world\u2019s farms. They&#8217;re also called home by about 2 billion people, <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.ba\/books?id=da6vhzHEpf0C&amp;pg=PA1&amp;redir_esc=y#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">warn<\/a> the editors of <em>Governing Global Desertification<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Turning desert sand into farmland: Chinese scientists propose a revolutionary solution\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Hxm8Xfsz0d4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>The ecological time bomb is about to explode<\/h2>\n<p>The people who live and farm on these drylands are sitting on an ecological time bomb that\u2019s ticking down fast. Global warming, climate change, overgrazing, and poor agricultural practices are quickly degrading the soil in these areas. China, for instance, loses about 3,366 km2 of farm and pasture to desertification every year, forcing entire villages to move or starve, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2016\/10\/24\/world\/asia\/living-in-chinas-expanding-deserts.html\">reports<\/a> <em>The New York Times<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese government is aware of the problem. For years now, they&#8217;ve been planting green windbreaks in a massive strategy they call the \u201cThree-North Shelter Forest Program\u201d or the \u201cGreen Wall of China\u201d. Enormous stretches of new trees, it\u2019s hoped, can break the wind and secure the soil against erosion. But scientists have <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_Program\">questioned<\/a> this approach: planting thirsty trees in drylands can do more harm than good. And what\u2019s needed is something truly revolutionary.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_32617\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-32617\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-32617 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/05\/shutterstock_646938067-min-1.jpg\" alt=\" A landscape photo of a desert on the left and a grassy green field on the right\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-32617\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Chinese scientists are turning desert into fertile land.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The good news is that researchers are rising to that challenge. Scientists from China\u2019s Chongqing Jiaotong University have developed a paste made from plant cells that can reverse this damage. If they&#8217;re right, this super-paste can turn desert back into arable land. That\u2019s not just clever tech &#8212; that\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/keynote\/the-future-of-agriculture\/\">life-saving innovation<\/a>!<\/p>\n<h2>An eco-friendly paste with unique properties<\/h2>\n<p>As the climate in these regions gets drier, plants have a hard time. This is made even worse by overgrazing or farming practices that don\u2019t respect soil health. And as these plants die, their role in holding topsoil weakens. Strong winds can then blow this fertile layer away, leaving sand or rock in its place. This is how deserts grow, and the Green Wall of China is an attempt to stop that process by preventing wind erosion.<\/p>\n<p>But Zhijian Yi and Chaohua Zhao from the Department of Mechanics at Chongqing Jiaotong University wanted to come at the problem from a different perspective. Rather than trying to \u2018fix\u2019 already dry soil in place with thirsty plants, they wanted to see if they could make sand grow crops. Their vision was nothing short of transforming desert into farmland.<\/p>\n<p>Their <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190808213232\/https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2095809916311560\">process<\/a> involves mixing a special paste composed of \u201ca modified sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) solution\u201d and fertilisers into the desert sand. One great thing about CMCs is that they\u2019re completely safe, and as Yi and Zhao <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190808213232\/https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2095809916311560\">note<\/a>, can be used \u201cas food additives, [are] non-toxic, environmentally friendly, cost-effective, and suitable for mass production\u201d. Another is that only 0.1 per cent to 0.4 percent of the content of the \u2018soilised\u2019 sand is this CMC solution. In other words, a little goes a very long way!<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"New technology in China turns desert into land rich with crops\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cazVrq9v1mE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After this mixing, the sand is watered thoroughly, and the paste binds everything together, converting the mixture into viable soil. It can then retain water, support nutrients, and help plants to grow &#8212; even though it\u2019s essentially still sand. To test their approach, Yi and Zhao treated a large area of the Ulan Buh Desert, a particularly harsh environment that\u2019s both very dry and very windy.<\/p>\n<h2>From dead desert land to thriving ecosystem<\/h2>\n<p>Their results were nothing short of miraculous. Plants grew, animals arrived, and an entire ecosystem took root. As they <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20190808213232\/https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S2095809916311560\">say<\/a>, \u201cAt present, more than 70 kinds of plants (over 20 of which may have been introduced by wind or birds) are growing healthily and robustly in the field &#8230; and the growing of some algae on the \u2018soil\u2019 indicates that a new ecological cycle different from the one common in desert is forming. Insects, such as butterflies, mosquitoes, and ants, and other animals, such as birds, mice, and even frogs are staying and living in the experimental field (those animals can rarely be seen in the desert). Sometimes foxes and badgers are also seen in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And as incredible as this innovation is, it makes economic sense, too. \u201cThe costs of artificial materials and machines for transforming sand into soil is lower compared with controlled environmental agriculture and reclamation,\u201d Dr Yang Qingguo, another professor from Chongqing Jiaotong University, explained. And that promises hope to the billions of people facing desertification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ecological time bomb is about to explode An eco-friendly paste with unique properties From dead desert land to thriving ecosystem Desertification, when fertile land dries into desert, is a global problem. According to Dr Steffen Bauer, an ecological expert at the Deutsches Institut f\u00fcr Entwicklungspolitik, as much as 40 per cent of the world [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45421,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2860],"tags":[4218,4375,4376],"article-type":[],"trends":[],"class_list":["post-57929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","tag-future","tag-globalwarming","tag-soil"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Turning desert sand into farmland: Chinese scientists propose a revolutionary solution to desertification - Richard van Hooijdonk 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