1997 Trip to Loess Plateau
In the summer of 1997 I again had the good fortune of given a 2-week
tour of Yellow River's loess plateau in the Shanxi-Shaanxi-Inner
Mongolia region at the invitation of the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC). As you can see from the articles written for this web page I have been actively promoting a plan of sediment control in the loess plateau to reduce the sediment load of the Yellow River in order to improve the condition of the river in a fundamental way.
The plan is to couple sediment reduction with reclamation by retaining the sediment at its source, to form arable land for the local farmers. To better understand the region, I needed to tour the loess plateau and see for myself, up close, its physical and economic conditions.
My plan aims at adding silt-trappers to the gullies, so as to arrest the sediment flow. The silt-trappers need however the protection of larger check dams which can stand up to flood flows coming down the gully. Although the cost of constructing rural check dams are relatively inexpensive by the economic standard of developed nations, it is prohibitive to the farmers there. Their low incomes forbid them to invest in land development. With little government funds forthcoming, it is a question of utilizing the limited available resources to their best advantage.
I need to look into the rural economy of the region to see how much of a burden would the farmers be willing to bear in terms of land improvement. Some valuable economic data are collected for a recent Watershed Rehabilitation Project in the loess plateau initiated in 1993 financed by a World Bank loan.
In this project several types of land at specific sites are developed with project funds, and the improved land is contracted to farmers for an annual rent. Although taking out a mortgage to buy a house is a standard procedure in the West, let me remind you there is no such avenue available to the farmers in China's poor hinterland.
In Yanan, Shaanxi, when I requested to see the rental data of the project sites, I was overjoyed by what I detected there. I read a rapid increase in the rents. Take for example a type of land called the sediment plots, which are located in the gully floor formed by trapping the sediment carried down by floods. In 1994 when the project first got started, not sure just how much the farmers were willing to pay for rent, sediment plots were assigned an annual rent of 50 yuan per mu (15 mu make a hectare). Then in 1995 the rent was raised to 80 yuan per mu. In spite of rapid increase in rent, all sediment plots had been
contracted. In 1996 it was raised to 100 yuan per mu, and in 1997 to 120 yuan per mu, with full potential of reaching even higher rent, since all such plots were rented as soon as they were developed. The same pattern applies to other types of improved land.
The reason for the high demand for improved land is simple, because the annual productivity of the sediment plot is currently around 450 yuan per mu (with a full potential of reaching 750 yuan per mu), and a rent of 120 yuan per mu should be a good investment. A vegetable garden can earn 5000 yuan per mu. Therefore, there is a great deal of strategy entering into land development.
I talked to a farmer who was taking out a loan from a private source to buy a small tractor at a monthly interest of 3%, which amounted to an annual interest of 36%! Isn't this usury? I was amazed. But, the farmer was doing it willingly. (I suspected that he was going to repay the debt in just a few months.) If there is a proper channel for taking out loans, they can improve their lots quickly.
As China is adopting a market economy, YRCC is no longer funded at a level that it enjoyed before. YRCC may in fact turn into a land developer in order to survive and grow. I hope this would happen, and YRCC could implement projects similar the current World Bank-financed Watershed Rehabilitation Project. Both the farmers and YRCC can be benefited by such a partnership.
In anticipation of such a development, I discussed with the local engineers about the possibility of a new sediment-control design, which I called the "mother-sons" system, with the main flood-prevention unit being the "mother," protecting a sequence of inexpensive silt-trappers downstream, her "sons," to create new sediment plots. Instead of trapping sediment with the main flood-prevention unit, rendering it useless in 20 years, the silt-laden flood water is allowed to pass through the unit to be collected by the silt-trappers downstream to form new land. Since the flood flow is now under control, the silt-trappers can be built inexpensively, and land created at a minimal cost.
The idea was written up in a paper, which was submitted to the journal "People’s Yellow River" for publication. I was confident that the incomes gathered from the auction of the sediment plots, and other irrigation possibilities, could contribute to paying for the construction of the project, freeing partially YRCC's dependence on government funding.
The opportunity for agricultural development in the loess plateau across the northern Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia is enormous, because the government is now exploiting its energy resources, such as its natural gas and coal, and is investing heavily there. With a high
concentration of imported laborers, demand for farm produce increases. If the sediment-control projects can tap into this new-found wealth, it would make the projects doubly beneficial, controlling sediment on the one hand and raising the living standard of the farmers on the other.
After completing my tour to the loess plateau in early July, I remained in Beijing to attend a conference in late July on
"technical exchanges across the straits,"
bringing together experts from China, Taiwan, and the United States on topics of water resources. I was particularly interested in the agricultural development in Taiwan in the 50s and 60s, hoping that some of the experiences gained in that process could be applied to China's northwest. I did meet some people at the conference who had spent a lifetime in Taiwan to improve its agriculture. I shall visit them in Taiwan again, and try to learn as much as I can from their experiences.
In short, improving the Yellow River is not simply a technical problem. It involves many facets of human endeavor. Maybe all of you can contribute to devise the best approach to its solution. We all have a role to play in erasing the stigma called "China's Sorrow."
