Fearing climate breakdown, Chinese scientists propose turning Tibetan plateau into farmland

Chinese scientists are predicting a major disruption in global food supply chains, potentially spurred by a climate catastrophe. Their solution? Turning the “roof of the world” into an agricultural stronghold.

Chinese government scientists are exploring ways to scale up farming on the Tibetan Plateau, so that the world’s second-most populous nation isn’t caught off guard when a global disaster hits owing to climate breakdown, including the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, Atlantic Ocean currents and polar ice sheets.

The impending disaster and the potential solution have been discussed in a report prepared by the National Climate Centre (NCC) in Beijing.

NCC is China’s premier body for climate monitoring, research and policy advice and serves under the China Meteorological Administration.

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The report, published on March 4 in the Chinese-language journal Climate Change Research, puts light on how the Tibetan plateau can be turned into “China’s future granary”.

Ma Lijuan, senior NCC engineer and lead author of the study, wrote in the report: “The Tibetan Plateau, recognised as the engine of environmental change in Asia, plays vital roles in water conservation, soil retention, wind breaking and sand fixation, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity preservation. Serving as a critical ecological security barrier for China and Asia, it is also a globally significant hotspot for biodiversity conservation.”

“By rigorously protecting its ecological environment and leveraging its unique natural and socio-economic conditions to develop plateau-specific agriculture, it is entirely feasible to turn the Tibetan Plateau into China’s future granary,” the report added.

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Challenges

However, achieving the ambition of sustainable farming in the extreme environment of the Tibetan Plateau is no easy feat.

Here, scientists hope that evolved, cold-resistant variants of crops can help further the idea of turning the “roof of the world” into the farm of the world.

Scientists have developed cold-resistant barley strains capable of growing at 5,000 meters (16,400 feet), an altitude once considered unsuitable for cultivation.

China has also made significant progress in potato farming, achieving yields of over 75 tonnes per hectare on the plateau—double the productivity of lower-altitude regions—due to the region’s intense sunlight.

China is also hoping to use artificial intelligence to facilitate farming on the rough terrain. For instance, it is looking for ways to use AI to monitor real-time data from vast numbers of sensors planted across the plateau to predict glacial floods and optimise crop rotations, reported the South China Morning Post.

However, there are fears that mining and other human activity in the region may disrupt the ecological balance at the plateau, threatening new settlers.