Areas of Sino-Indian Cooperation in Agriculture: Problems and Prospects

III
Topgraphy together with climatic factors, particularly temprature set the limit of the propensity of land use for crop production. Wang Haowang, a famous Chinese geologist has estimated 10 per cent of the Chinese land form as plain, 16 per cent as basin, 9 per cent hilly land, 35 per cent plateau, and 30 per cent mountain. Notwithstanding, every plant needs its own length of growing times. In China, in the region north of the Great Wall, there are less than 140 days when plants can grow. In the yellow river valley, the killing frosts between autumn and spring, sets the plant growing period to 222 days. In the Yangze valley, the growing period is 285 days. It is just southern most region where there can be vegetation through out the year. Besides, the regional distibution of water resources define the upper limit of actual cultivation potential of the land resource. While 58 per cent of cultivable land lay in northern and north eastern provinces of China, the region has just 14.4 per cent share of surface run off and ground water.