China grapples with reduced crop output

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, November 16, 2003

China grapples with reduced crop output

China has been taking precautions to guard against possible problems related to food safety after a drop in domestic crop output for three straight years.

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China has been taking precautions to guard against possible problems related to food safety after a drop in domestic crop output for three straight years.

Though China still has a stable grain reserve, the country would take a series of measures to ensure food safety, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said at a working conference on agriculture and food held in Beijing recently.

Four measures the premier proposed include strict protection of arable land, more support to farmers, construction of rural infrastructure and promotion of agricultural technology.

China harvested 450 billion kilograms of crops this year, less than the average 500 billion kilograms output in the past ten-plus years and prices of some staple grains rose.

China is under-supplied by 40 billion to 50 billion kilograms of grain this year, said Li Jingmou, manager of a Zhengzhou grain wholesale market. Zhengzhou, capital of Henan Province, is considered a barometer of China's grain prices and a major grain distributing center.

Ordinary grains could basically meet the needs of urban and rural residents, but the country lacks high-quality breeds, said Li, which could propel China to accelerate modernization of the food industry and its integration into the global market.

With the traditional belief of the more food the safer, the consecutive bumper years resulted in lower grain prices and less income for farmers, said Li, so the current grain price hike could increase farmers' income, which might be the shining light.

However, many experts disagreed with Li and they were pessimistic about the grain production deduction.

The alarm bell was ringing on food safety due to the continual reduction of grain output, shrinkage of arable land and soaring consumption levels of the residents, said Li Siheng, a researcher with State Grain Administration.

Analysts attributed grain reduction to shrinking arable land after some regional departments misunderstood agriculture reconstruction as cutting crop acreage. Farming land dropped to 1. 89 billion mu (125.93 million hectares) in 2002 from 1.95 billion mu (130.07 million hectares) in 1996, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources.

China should keep at least 1.6 billion mu (106.67 million hectares) of farmland in the medium and long term, said Han Jun, a senior official with Development Research Center of the State Council.

Information from the Third Plenary Session of 16th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee includes strict measures to protect arable land and food safety.

Before the 1980s, China had been struggling to provide enough food and clothing for its 1.3 billion population.

Due to effective measures and continual harvesting, the country has increased grain reserves and balanced demand and supply over the past decade and more, raising 22 percent of the world's population successfully with seven percent of the world's cultivable land.

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