CHONGQING, July 21 (Xinhua) -- China will pump in about 25.5 billion yuan (3.77 billion U.S. dollar) in 2017 to projects to return farmland to forestry and grass in 14 provincial regions and in parts of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The money will be used to finish the reclamation of 820,000 hectares, of which 740,000 hectares will be returned to forest, according to Zhou Hongsheng, head of the land reclamation office under the State Forestry Administration.
China has carried two rounds of land reclamation work, with the latest one in 2014 aiming to return almost 2.83 million hectares of farmland to forest and grassland by 2020.
"Returning land to forest and grass is a key project for China's ecological rehabilitation to control water and soil loss as well as land desertification," Zhou said.
