Three years ago, Yuan Longping led a program of planting rice in saline-alkali soil in areas, including Xinjiang and Heilongjiang.

If China could put 6.67 million hectares of saline-alkali soil into rice production, it would be very likely to increase by around 30 million tons, a huge contribution to the country.

Sometimes I feel Beijing is a saline and alkaline land too, everywhere like a saline-alkali soil or a desert.