January 26, 2007

China may face grain shortage of 4.8 million tonnes in 2010

China might face a grain shortage of 4.8 million tonnes in 2010, almost 9 percent of the country's grain consumption.

If the prediction by "Study Times", a newspaper affiliated to the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, were true, the country would undershoot its grain security target according to which domestic supplies must make up 95 percent of needs.

The grain shortage would make the country more dependent on imports and put an upward pressure on grain prices, said the report.

It is difficult for China to raise grain output because arable land shrank from 131 million hectares in 1996 to 123 million hectares in 2005 and the trend is hard to reverse.

Last year, grain prices grew 1 percent in January, 3.7 percent in October and 4.7 percent in November when the CPI jumped 1.9 percent, the highest rise of the year.