Crops like corn, tomatoes, sorghum and sunflowers are transforming more than 200 hectares of sand dunes into an oasis – all within six months.
It’s all thanks to new technology developed by researchers at Chongqing Jiaotong University. They developed a paste made of a substance found in plant cell walls.
When it’s added to sand, it’s able to retain water, nutrients and air.
“The costs of artificial materials and machines for transforming sand into soil is lower compared with controlled environmental agriculture and reclamation,” Yang Qingguo, professor at Chongqing Jiaotong University said.
The research team has big future plans. This fall, it hopes to transform an additional 200 hectares of desert – and possibly more than 13,000in the next few years.
The method could be promising for China. In three years, the country hopes to reforest 50 percent of degraded desert land that can be treated. By 2030, the United Nations is aiming to reach zero growth of desert farmland around the world.
China’s breakthrough experiment in converting sand to soil is promising for making land seemingly hostile to life, fertile ground.
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