Some 210,000 farmers in Jingyuan, Huanxian and Huining counties, in Gansu Province in northwest China, will finally be getting water.

The farmers, living on the Loess Plateau about 2,200 meters above sea level, have been suffering from a water shortage since the 1970s.

A farmer holds a withered crop in Huining County of Gansu Province in May 2006.

In the past 10 years, local governments built more than 10,000 underground storage tanks for the farmers to collect and hold rain water, but there has been no rain in the past five years. Starting in August 2005, with an investment of 120 million yuan (US$15.4 million) from the provincial government, a project has been under way to bring water from the Yellow River up to the Loess Plateau. Farmers in Jingyuan county now have water and the project will reach the other two counties later this year.

(Xinhua News Agency July 17, 2007)