China's grain output is expected to hit 455 million tons in
2004, Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin said on 25th December in Beijing.
"2004 is a key year to recover grain production and to avert the
(detrimental) reverse of the supply-demand relations," Du told a national
agricultural conference yesterday.
Du's prediction comes after the
nation's grain output witnessed a year-on-year fall of 26.4 million tons in
2003.
The meeting coincided with the Central Rural Work Conference,
which stressed the importance of supporting the agricultural sector and ensuring
farmers' incomes grow more rapidly.
The country may harvest 430.6
million tons of grain in 2003, down by 5.8 per cent from last year, according to
the ministry's projections.
A chronic decline in grain yields and a
shrinkage of the crop-sowing area over the past few years have sounded alarm
bells among the country's agricultural decision-makers, Du conceded.
In
part, the situation has caused China's grain production to fall short of
consumption for four years in a row. In mid-October, the country experienced
price hikes in grain that it had not encountered over the past six years.
"We should bring farmers' grain production initiative into full display,
while protecting and improving the grain production capacity," Du said.
In addition to optimizing the crop growing mix, the country will reserve
100 million hectares of farmland for grain strains next year, the minister said.
Grain production aside, Du also listed increasing farmers' incomes as a
key task for the coming year.
Despite the impact of SARS (severe acute
respiratory syndrome) in the second quarter of this year, the income of Chinese
farmers is anticipated to grow by 4 per cent this year, Du said.
To
underscore the important contribution of the urban work to farmers' income
growth, Du said his ministry will see to it that at least 100 million rural
residents will transfer to off-farm jobs in 2004.
The minister also said
China's imports and exports of farm produce reached US$35.49 billion in the
January-November period, a jump of 30.3 per cent from the same period last
year.¡õ
(Information source: China
Daily)
2003/12/29
