China's fight against hunger has been a great success, said Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Thursday at the ongoing 27th FAO Regional Conference for the Asia and the Pacific.

"We are encouraged by the fact that China is feeding one quarter of world's population only with seven percent of the world's arable land," said Diouf when interviewed by reporters.

Diouf attributed China's success to the priority the Chinese government had given to agriculture and its huge investment in the sector.

China has been giving priority within agriculture to irrigation. So far 50 percent of its arable land has been built with irrigation facilities and China's target is to increase 1 percent of irrigable arable land each year.

In addition, policies have been adopted in China to avoid deforestation along the banks of major rivers, which helped cut water erosion, silt accumulation and flood risks.

Diouf noted that China's agriculture still faces some problems. The income difference between the rural and urban areas, and between the coastal and inland areas, led to migration of the rural population to urban and coastal areas of the country.

China will also face increasing food demand with its high GDP growth, especially in high-quality food, said Diouf. Besides, the country will also face the consequences of becoming a member of the WTO and the international market which is distorted.

Diouf also mentioned China's cereal output decrease, reduction of stocks and increase of demand in the past several years, saying that climate changes have caused the output decrease.

"The Chinese government is naturally well aware of the problems, and is developing policies to address these problems," said Diouf.

In the past 20 years, China has adopted a series of reform measures to improve agricultural productivity.

Currently, total supply of major agricultural products has shifted from a long-term shortage to a general balance against total demand, with some surplus in good harvest years. The number of undernourished people had also decreased to 29 million in 2003 from 250 million in 1978.