Farmers in Liming Village in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region felt helpless about the constant desert encroachment. Many left their home to make their livings in other parts of the country two years ago.

The village has survived from being swallowed by sand, however, thanks to a ban on overgrazing.

Liming Village had been a place with a vast grassland and abundant water resources. Irrational use of natural resources and traditional farming methods had resulted in overgrazing. Sandstorms began to strike the village, which would probably have been swallowed by the desert like Loulan, or Kroraina, an ancient civilization on the eastern tip of Taklimakan whose collapse still remains a mystery to historians.

Thirty-nine farm households in the village had to move to a highland several km away from the village two years ago.

Under such circumstance, the local government closed livestock grazing to facilitate grassland rejuvenation. Farmers are required to raise sheep and cattle in pens.

As a result, formerly barren loess-land and sand dunes have been covered by luxuriant vegetation, and sandstorms have become rare.

Jia Yong, a villager who just reaped a good corn harvest, said," At first, villagers were reluctant to raise livestock in pens. Now, we have found breeding livestock in pens is much better - it leads to higher reproduction rate and heavier weight for the livestock."

Du Rong, the village head, added, "Now, farmers grow fodder crops for their livestock and buy grain with the money earned by selling the livestock. In this way, the per capita annual income of farmers in our village averaged 1,800 yuan (about US$217) last year, an increase of several hundred yuan."

Under the policy of closing grassland to livestock, all the 13 villages in the region have survived severe desertification.

(Xinhua News Agency November 6 ,2004)