Chinese Introduce Compulsory Labor to Speed Irrigation
Several Chinese provinces have introduced compulsory labor programs to improve irrigation systems, many which have fallen into disrepair because of the elimination of collective farming, a newspaper reported Friday.
The official China Daily said that eight of China’s 29 provinces now require rural workers to spend 10 to 20 days a year repairing or building irrigation and drainage facilities, flood control projects and other water resource installations.
Work brigades will be organized in the slack farming seasons of winter and early spring, it said.
Many of the extensive irrigation systems built under the commune system of the 1950s and 1960s have been damaged or have fallen into disuse over the last 10 years when reforms dismantled the communes and returned China to individual family farming.
Irrigated farmland shrank an average of 494,000 acres annually from 1981 to 1985, and decreased by 153,140 acres in 1986, the daily said.
China now has 19.4 million acres of irrigated farmland.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
