National Implementation Case Study: China - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 357

the country, funding and technology are
still the predominant limiting factors. More-
over, the establishment of compensative
mechanisms is also necessary for sequestrat-
ing carbon in soils, which may need a rapid
and feasible assessment system so that a
compensative strategy can be implemented
and evaluated dynamically. To overcome
these challenges, the Chinese government
has taken a series of actions to respond to
these issues. Biological carbon sequestra-
tion technologies and carbon sequestration
projects have been incorporated into the
Guidelines on National Medium- and Long-
term Program for Science and Technology
Development (2006-2020) (State Council of
PR China, 2006), and several research pro-
jects at national level have also been started
to solve carbon-related issues. These pro-
jects include, for example, the 'Global cli-
mate change and ecological issue' projects
supported by the Chinese Academy of Sci-
ence (CAS) in 2009 (Ding et al ., 2009),
'Carbon sequestration function and poten-
tial in natural forest and grassland of China'
project supported by the Ministry of Sci-
ence and Technology of China in 2010 and
the strategic priority research programme -
'Climate change: carbon budget and related
issues' - hosted by CAS in 2011 (Wang et al .,
2012). These research projects concen-
trate mainly on the evaluation of carbon
sequestration potential originated from
forest, pasture, shrub, cropland manage-
ment, the EC project and the experiment
on optimal configuration, integration and
demonstration of current carbon seques-
tration technology. However, carbon se-
questration-related new technology, such
as CO 2 capture and storage, CR/ConsT
machinery, application of biochar and
biological inhibitors, crop breeding and
selection and the development of controlled-
release (CRF) and slow-release (SRF) fertil-
izers are still not perfect and need to be
improved. This improvement may demand
huge financial support or technical support
imported from developed countries. For ex-
ample, the agricultural machinery used in
the ConsT/CR is still the primary limiting
factor for the adoption of these techniques
in China.

Notion and knowledge gap

Chinese farmers usually prefer to pursue
their traditional tillage methods as they
think these are the most effective for high
productivity. Traditional tillage, however,
may deteriorate the physical properties and
organic matter of agricultural soils, and
make the soils subject to erosion. Consequently,
soil fertility is decreased dramatically.
Traditional tillage in China is essentially
not suitable for establishing a sustainable
development model of agriculture. There-
fore, the efforts for bridging the notion gaps
between scientific research and farmers,
administrators and policy makers are indis-
pensable. For example, most Chinese farm-
ers believe that the more the fertilizer input,
the higher will be the crop yield. Conse-
quently, excessive chemical fertilizers and
pesticides have often been applied, and the
optimal balance between cost and benefit
missed. Moreover, Chinese farmers rarely
accept the recommendation of balanced
fertilizations, because the application of
organic fertilizer such as manure is now
considered to be hard and time-consuming
work. Therefore, the change of current fer-
tilization notions is still difficult, as long as
there are no incentivizing policies. More-
over, during the extension of ConsT tech-
nology, extension staff should introduce
effective tillage methods such as ridge-till,
strip-till and mulch-till to farmers, and also
the development of ConsT technology that
is suitable for specific ecological environ-
ment conditions. Acceptance by Chinese
farmers is also necessary because this could
bridge the knowledge gaps between them
and new technologies and practices.

Policy challenge

During the transition period from trad-
itional agriculture to low-carbon as well as
cost- and resource-effective agriculture in
China, the promotion and extension of car-
bon-sequestering agriculture are also con-
strained by the lack of sufficient policy
support and encouragement. The uncertain-
ties in farmers' income in the extension of