NANCHANG, June 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Dirty smelly dung previously littered around rural China has become a scare resource for farmers using marsh gas to cook.

    In Zhoutou Village of Taihe County, south China's Jiangxi Province, a silent battle on "poop scooping" was staged almost every morning. Chen Daoyuan, 53, used to be the village's first riser and never fell short of fuel for his methane-generating pits.

    Nowadays, he often came home empty-handed as many of his fellowvillagers got up earlier and earlier to get the manure of cows, pigs, dogs, rooster, gooses and other livestock.

    To beat his rivals, Chen even went out before dawn, searching for manure by flashlight. Other people, not such early risers as him, cultivated a habit of garbage recycling.

    From rotten vegetables, crop stocks and poultry excrement to night soil, all that are usable have been used. Some farmers even offered to buy cattle manure from neighboring villages.

    As a result, the pilot county for China's rural energy reform has found fewer people littering their domestic waste casually andthe local sanitary environment has gradually changed in a better way.

    Earlier this year, Chinese central government has planned to issue 1 billion yuan (about 120 million US dollars) of bonds to help build methane-generating pits at 6,000 villages in 24 provinces, which will benefit more than 1.03 million rural households.

    According to the plan of the Ministry of Agriculture, rural households equipped with methane-generating pits will reach 20 million next year. By 2010, the figure is expected to hit 50 million.

    Given traditional cooking methods in rural China required a heavy consumption of firewood while the methane-generating pits rely only on garbage recycling, the Ministry of Agriculture believed some 467 hectares of timberland will be protected by 2010,over 2,000 tons of manure will be reused.

    To alleviate the manure battle among farmers and solve their fuel shortage problem, the Chinese government also mapped out a plan to encourage the development of ecological farming which combines livestock breeding and fruit growing.

    By breeding livestock, farmers will get manure for marsh gas. From exhaust of marsh gas, they will in turn get fertilizer for fruit growing. Enditem