June 11, 2007

Drought hampering China's grain output

Drought is affecting 26.7 million hectares of farmland and reducing China's grain output by around 30 million tonnes each year, an agricultural official said.

Highlighting the importance of water saving techniques in agriculture, Wei Chao'an, vice minister of Agriculture, said agriculture accounts for 64 percent of the country's total water consumption.

Despite government investment of US$91.3 million in water saving technologies, China is still short of 30 billion cubic metres of water for its farmland, Wei said.

However, such measures has helped China to gain 2.7 billion cubic metres of rain water a year, he said.