Inside a greenhouse on the edge of the Kubuqi Desert in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, bananas, papayas and other plants grow in sharp contrast with the sand near the area.

The greenhouse, at the Engebei Ecological Demonstration Zone in Dalad Banner, is part of a broader story of desert control. Engebei set up a sand-control station in 1977 and has developed it into a site for ecological restoration, agricultural testing and seedling cultivation in recent years.

Liu Xueqin, an agricultural technician at the zone since 2009, said the center introduces and tests plant varieties before sharing planting techniques and seedlings with local farmers and herders.

"Seedlings are the chips of agriculture," Liu said. "The park aims to combine ecological, social and economic benefits."

The work also continues in the desert itself. At a nearby desert-control site, local farmers and herders use willow branches to build vertical sand barriers. Native trees, shrubs and grasses are then planted inside the grids to further stabilize the dunes.

Xu Zhehao, deputy director of the Dalad Banner forestry and grassland bureau, said conditions had changed greatly over the decades.

In the past, he said, when winds reached force six or above, "we could see nothing here, and production activities had to stop." The Kubuqi Desert covers 4.35 million mu (290,000 hectares) in Dalad Banner, and about 80 percent has now been brought under control, Xu said.

"In the past, we had no machines. Everything had to be dug by hand, shovel by shovel," he said. "Now, with new technology, we have improved the efficiency of desert control."

Not far away, rows of solar panels at the Dalad Banner Photovoltaic Top Runner Base show another approach. The Dalad section stretches about 133 kilometers and forms part of Ordos' planned Kubuqi photovoltaic sand-control belt.

Li Kai, director of the energy security center of Dalad Banner energy bureau, said the projects combine desertification control with renewable energy development through a model of generating power above the panels, restoring sand below them and planting between them.

Completed solar projects have brought 270,000 mu (18,000 hectares) of desert under control. By the end of 2030, Dalad's photovoltaic sand-control projects are expected to cover about 800,000 mu (53,333.33 hectares), with an annual green power output of around 40 billion kilowatt-hours and an installed capacity of about 17 million kilowatts.

The sites reflect how Inner Mongolia is using engineering, biological, scientific and photovoltaic measures in desertification control. Since 2021, the region has completed 138 million mu (9.2 million hectares) of ecological restoration, including 72.9 million mu  (4.86 million hectares) of desertification control, regional officials said.