Xinjiang’s 400-hectare desert wheat harvest is a milestone in China’s push for food security

China has the largest area of desertified land in the world. Its almost 300 million hectares of desertified land – land that has been degraded because of a variety of factors – affects the production and lives of more than 400 million people, according to official figures. “This batch of wheat weighs 825 grams per litre, meeting the standard for first-class wheat of the wheat yield measurement, and the yield exceeds 260kg per mu,” Wang told China News Service this week. A mu is a unit of measurement commonly used in China, with 15 mu equivalent to 1 hectare and about 6 mu equalling 1 acre. He said the company aimed for a 400kg unit output by improving plantation technologies. China has ramped up its push for food security in recent years amid volatile global markets, the effects of climate change on food sources and geopolitical complications. The winter wheat was planted in October in Makit county on the southwestern edge of the desert in China’s inland Kashgar prefecture in ...