China to focus on agriculture output this year

 

 

China's agricultural spending growth will continue to slow down this year, but the government attaches more importance to the output of major agricultural commodities.

 

China plans to spend RMB818.3 billion on agriculture in 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said Friday (March 5), up 14% from last year's target of RMB716.14 billion, the slowest growth since 2007.

 

Of the planned expenditure, subsidies to farmers, including those on seeds, farming equipment and other inputs, will rise 8.5% on year to RMB133.5 billion. The growth rate in the subsidies is also smaller than last year's 19% increase.

 

However, for the first time in its report issued on the opening ceremony of the National People's Congress's annual meeting, the NDRC has set targets for major commodities' output.

 

The country aims to produce 31.5 million tonnes of oilseeds this year, up 1.6% on year, and a meat output of 78 million tonnes and aquatic products output of 52 million tonnes, up 2.1% and 1.6% respectively, the NDRC said.

 

"It showed the government's increasing recognition of the need to protect local agricultural products, as it does not want such sectors to be more reliant on imports like soy," said analysts.

 

The country faces increasing pressure to meet its local demand for agricultural products, even with the strict criterion of keeping total arable land above 120 million hectares, said Yu Baoding, an official with the Rural Economy Research Center under the Development Research Center of the State Council, China's cabinet.

 

China needs to achieve a grain production capacity of about 600 million tonnes in order to meet the demand of its population of 1.5 billion around 2030, according to the head of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

 

Last year, it produced 530.82 million tonnes of grain, up 0.4% on year; it was the sixth year in a row that grain output increased.