D J Clark Multimedia Stories

More than 2.5 million people, 41 percent of Ningxia's population, are living in the region's southern mountainous area, which the United Nations listed as one of the most uninhabitable places in 1970 due to its extreme environment. The government, which brings a considerable amount of aid to the area every year, identifies more than 1 million residents as being below the poverty line.

Local people and the government, however, are looking for a sustainable way of to draw the local people out of the poverty trap.

China Daily's Peng Yinning went to investigate.

There is a saying in China that goes “Food is like Heaven.” As the balance of the population shifts from the countryside to the cities so more and more people are being denied the opportunity to control their own “heaven” but is this about to change?

With rising global populations and a lack of land to expand rural agriculture governments are starting to look at their cities as an unlikely place to site new farmland. D J Clark investigates how this is playing out in China.

Over the past 20 years horse riding as a sport in China has been on the rise, since the 2008 Olympics where China was represented by six riders in the Hong Kong arena.

China Daily reporter Peng Yining took the short drive out of central Beijing to Xiwu International Equestrian Club, out near the airport, where around 40 of the 200 members are younger than 18 years of age to find out what was driving young people to learn this ancient sport.