People in the town of Shache in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region are beginning to pick strawberries grown on the alkaline land.
Xinjiang has the largest area of saline-alkali soils in China, accounting for about a third of the country's total. As a result, the agriculture and economy in Xinjiang has been hurdled by this fact.
However in the village of Keshilake, strawberries planted in the greenhouses are thriving. "We've ameliorated the alkaline soil, reducing its alkalinity by 70 percent and increasing the contents of organic matters by 50 percent," said Zhang Ting, manager of the Shanghai agricultural company that provides voluntary service in Xinjiang.