China News Service, Yugan, Jiangxi, November 7 (Lai Hanze) As a traditional agricultural county in Jiangxi Province, Yugan County, Shangrao City, located on the bank of Poyang Lake, is rich in arable land resources. However, due to the lack of collaboration between relevant departments in land management in the past, some of the local cultivated land that has been renovated in the early years is facing problems such as thin cultivated layers and insufficient organic matter. It is extremely easy to fall into the risk of "degradation after remediation and restoration after degradation".
In order to solve this problem, Yugan County, Shangrao City has broken down departmental business barriers, established a normalized collaborative linkage mechanism, and coordinated planning and integrated promotion of river dredging and farmland quality improvement. At present, the local area has formed a mature and standardized resource recycling model. Every autumn and winter when the rivers are dry, the local water conservancy department intensively carries out dredging of rivers in the entire region; the natural resources department follows up simultaneously, sampling and testing the removed silt, and strictly screening out silt materials that are pollution-free and have high organic matter content.
The picture shows an excavator spreading river mud at a degraded farmland improvement site in Yugan County, Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province. Photo by Lai Hanze
At the same time, in accordance with the principle of "nearly allocated, covered with soil as needed, and efficiently utilized", relevant departments will directly transfer up-to-standard silt to surrounding degraded cultivated land, specifically to thicken the cultivated layer and optimize the soil structure. Today, the thickness of the cultivated layer in the local renovated plots has stabilized at more than 30 centimeters, problems such as soil compaction have been effectively solved, and the quality of cultivated land has been steadily improved.
Improved soil quality has stimulated farmers' enthusiasm for planting. "In the past, the soil layer of these farmland was thin and the fertility was poor. It was difficult to increase the yield without using chemical fertilizers. Farming was laborious and unprofitable. Now, after silt improvement, the soil is fertile, the amount of chemical fertilizers has been greatly reduced, and the cost of farming has been significantly reduced." said Guo Changqing, a large grower in Yugan County, Shangrao City.
At present, the first batch of land development projects of approximately 1,100 acres in Yugan County in 2026 has entered the design stage. Relevant departments contacted in advance and designed the plan strictly in accordance with the expected amount of silt produced by the river dredging project in the following year, which not only solved the problem of soil acquisition, but also ensured the fertility of the newly added cultivated land.
In addition, for the existing degraded farmland, the local government adheres to the refined management and protection concept of "renovating one area, fertilizing one area, and producing effective results", continues to promote silt fertilization and improvement work, steadily restores soil fertility, and maintains the hard-won management results.
From river dredging waste to improving soil nutrients, Yugan County has used cross-department collaboration to solve grassroots governance problems, embarking on a win-win path for ecology and economy, and providing valuable experience for improving the quality of degraded cultivated land in lake areas and counties, and for long-term management and protection of newly added cultivated land. (over)
