SAND TRAP: Soldiers plant trees in Inner Mongolia (ZHANG LING)

As a farmer, he doesn't know what poplars planted in his field have to do with global climate change and low carbon emission. Nor does he realize how much of a contribution his community could make to the environment.

But despite their ignorance, Li Tianyi, a farmer in Daying Town in Kaifeng, Henan Province and other tree planters are indeed making a difference.

They are nameless supporters of the returning farmland to forests project, a large-scale land-use transition and ecological conservation campaign China launched 10 years ago. The campaign began as a pilot in three western provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu in 1999 and was implemented nationwide three years later.

In 2004, Li got 90-odd poplar saplings from the government. "The government provides 40 to 60 poplars for each mu (a Chinese measure of land, equal to 1/15 of a hectare) of sandy land. Two mu of my 8 mu of cropland have been planted with poplars," said Li.

As the largest ecological protection and poverty alleviation program involving the largest investment and population in China's history, this project aims to combat ecological degradation and rural poverty by turning low-yielding or sloping farmland to forests and grassland, while subsidizing farmers with grain and cash. By 2009, a total of 233.2 billion yuan ($34.7 billion) had been invested and 27.7 million hectares of cropland and barren mountains had been converted to forests or grassland.

Ecological benefit

Over the last decade, Li Tianyi witnessed great improvement of the environment in his hometown. Located in the old waterway of the Yellow River, Daying Town is a typical sandy soil area. It used to be a poverty-stricken area haunted by serious environmental problems. According to Li, in the past, sandstorm was rampant here. "When strong wind blows, we could hardly see the road. Heavy dust storms buried the farmland and even blocked the rivers. Natural disasters occurred frequently, severely affecting grain output," he recalled.

But these have been greatly changed since the implementation of the green for grain project. The intensity of sandstorms has been reduced. Li said the trees planted on converted cropland in Daying are all poplars as the soil here is fit for such trees to grow.  This kind of soil drains water easily, and planting poplars helps hold the soil and resist water erosion. Thus the ecological balance is restored in the long run.

By 2008, 119.6 million yuan ($17.9 million) had been invested in the afforestation project in Kaifeng, with 362,000 a mu of cultivated land and barren mountains converted to forests. The forest coverage rate was increased by 3.74 percent. 

"The environment is getting much better. In the past, I could often find sand in my bowl when eating outside the house. These days such things rarely happen," said Li.

Economic benefit

As his cropland grows greener, Li also gets richer. "Most of my farmland is sandy and on a slope, which is not suitable for crops to grow. Planting trees offers me another sources of income," Li told ChinAfrica. He explained that his family income used to be purely from the grain, which was around 1,000 yuan ($149) per mu. Though grain output has somewhat dropped, Li receives compensation from the government for planting trees on his fields. "Subsidies are given in forms of both grain and cash," Li said. "We receive 150 kg of grain and 200 yuan ($29.8) from the government annually for each mu of our farmland converted to forests."

The policy has benefited the whole county. According to Li, in Daying Town, around 2,000 mu of land are now planted with poplars. With grain subsidy converted to cash nowadays, each poplar-planting household gets 450 yuan ($67.2) per mu annually. "Each year the whole county receives 900,000 yuan ($134,910) from government. It's a big sum of money," said Li.

According to kfnl.gov.cn, the official forestry information website of Kaifeng, by 2008, 35,711 households benefited from the policy, with 3,349 yuan ($502) for each household on average.

Sales of the trees will also contribute to Li's future income increase. "These poplars are too young to be sold now, but in three years time when they're mature, they can hopefully bring me over 2,000 yuan ($298) annually," he said.

While benefiting economically, Li's workload has been reduced. Being a 52-year-old man, he felt he was not as strong as before to do too much farm work. As two sons were working away from home in big cities and couldn't help, he was considering abandoning most of his farm work in two or three years. "Taking care of the trees doesn't cost me much time and energy, and I'm thinking to run some small business with my wife in my spare time," Li said.

Long term

With both ecological and economic benefits being reaped, the preferential policy will continue. In the next decade to 2021, the Chinese Government will invest another 200 billion ($29.8 billion) in the returning farmland to forests project, Wu Lijun, deputy director of the program, said in a press briefing of the State Council Information Office on August 29.

Li is among those who see a prosperous future for the campaign. He believes this policy will bring more benefit in the long run. "It's not been long since we planted the poplars, and now we can't see the obvious effects in soil improvement. But in the future positive changes will happen. When the soil is improved, the grain output will significantly rise. It's an immeasurable benefit that we will reap a few years from now," he said.