Matychenkov, soil expert from Russia, has found an exciting new ground for his work in Hunan. [Photos provided to China Daily]

Vladimir Matychenkov, a soil expert from Russia, is digging up fields in Central China for sustainable solutions. Liu Xiangrui and Feng Zhiwei report in Changsha.

Vladimir Matychenkov, a renowned soil expert from Russia, has found an exciting new ground for his work in Central China's Hunan province.

The 51-year-old has been spending a lot of his time in Changsha, the provincial capital, since last year.

Matychenkov established connections with the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 2010, after he gave a speech at the academy during a visit to the city. At the invitation of Ji Xionghui, vice－director of the academy's Institute of Soil Science, Matychenkov then started to visit the academy twice every year to work on small projects or to deliver lectures.

"The result of such exchanges was good and we started to seriously talk about future cooperation," says Matychenkov, who is a senior scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

He got his PhD in biochemistry in Russia in 1986.

In 2013, he became a visiting professor of the Hunan academy to help with research in passivation and reduction of cadmium in soil. And now, he is a high-level foreign expert who has joined the Key Laboratory of Agro-Environment in Midstream of Yangtze Plain, which is based in the Hunan academy. The laboratory is an affiliate of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Matychenkov found that Hunan, as one of China's largest producers of rice, is also an important region for mining, which creates high levels of pollution and threatens food safety.

"I realized that I can put my technology to use here," says Matychenkov, whose responsibilities include giving technological support to institutes and consulting with the province's agricultural companies.