Xinxiang commemorates 100th birthday of renowned irrigation expert

Hundreds of agrarians on Saturday gathered in Xinxiang, Henan province, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jia Dalin, the late irrigation expert who transformed large swathes of saline-alkali land into fertile soil in the 1980s, and study his academic thought. 

Jia, who died in Beijing in 2003, worked on several posts from 1961 to 1987 at the Institute of Farmland Irrigation, including serving as its director from 1983 to 1987. 

The institute is a research body of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Xinxiang, which hosted the event titled "Seminar on Water-Saving Technologies, Green Development and Jia Dalin Academic Thought". 

While addressing the event, Yang Zhenhai, Party Chief of CAAS, said that Jia spent 26 years treating large tracts of saline-alkali land in North China, which bolstered farmers' income in the region and managed to shore up crop yields. 

"The fertile fields are the academic paper he wrote on the motherland, and are the best reward for his lifelong efforts," he said. 

According to the website of irrigation institute, Jia's efforts helped nearly triple rural income in three counties with vast areas of the saline-alkali lands, and increased local food yield by 89 percent.