400,000 Chinese farmers are losing land to desert: report

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

*Perilous Times and Global Warming

400,000 Chinese farmers are losing land to desert: report
*
BEIJING, Jan 14 (AFP) Jan 14, 2007

More than 400,000 farmers in China's southwestern province of Guizhou
are losing their land to encroaching desert, state media said Sunday.

One fifth of the land in China's poorest province had already been
turned into desert due to soil erosion and falling water levels, Xinhua
news agency said, quoting a provincial government report.

Now, 450,000 farmers were facing "drastic deterioration" in living
conditions as farmland turned into desert, characterised by the
emergence of underlying rock as surface soil eroded, the new agency said.