Lishu county in Jilin province offers an example of black soil protection practices. [Photo/Jilin news network]

Measures have been taken to protect "black soil" in Northeast China's Jilin province, including technological innovations, talent recruitment, funding support and related policies.

The measures were explained during a press conference held on June 16 in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China.

Jilin province is rich in black soil – a type of highly fertile earth that takes hundreds of years to form a layer one-centimeter thick – and this has made it China's major grain-producing province.

The province is located in the core of the "black soil area" in Northeast China, and the grain output of its 26 typical black soil areas and counties accounts for 80 percent of the province's total.

Jilin recruited 27 experts and scholars, including four academicians, to form a black soil protection expert committee.

It has since issued suggestions for comprehensively strengthening the protection of black soil, and formulated 38 specific measures in 10 areas.

To prevent the fertility of the black soil from being degraded and to maintain productivity, the province has been undertaking conservation tillage, a form of tillage designed to minimize the use of plows and prevent the loss of topsoil.

Lishu county offers an example of this practice. After reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and covering fallow farmland with corn stalks to raise productivity, the county effectively countered agricultural pollution and conserved its soil resources.

Jilin has implemented 1.12 billion yuan ($174 million) in subsidies to promote conservation tillage. The implementation area has been expanded to 28.75 million mu (1.92 million hectares), a year-on-year increase of 55.2 percent, ranking first in Northeast China.