June 16, 2012

China's Henan may achieve bumper summer grain crop

Wheat gathering in central China's Henan Province is almost complete and this year, they are expecting a bumper summer grain crop for the 10th consecutive year, said Wei Zhongsheng, chief economist with the provincial agricultural department.

By June 11, Henan had finished 95% of wheat crops reaping.

The country's major grain production base yielded 31.3 million tonnes of summer grain in 2011, accounting for nearly 5% of the nation's full year grain production. China's summer grain mainly includes winter wheat and early rice.

Affected by white ear disease in northern regions of Anhui province, another major wheat producing province in east China, the market has begun to worry that China's wheat output may drop slightly this year.

However, majority of the country's wheat growing areas have not seen the disease and wheat quality is at an average level on the whole.

Industry insiders say that the nation's wheat output remains uncertain as reaping has not finished.

The China Grain Reserves Corporation, or the state stockpiler, started to implement the wheat purchase and reserve program in east China's Anhui and Jiangsu provinces, from Tuesday (June 12) as market prices in the two provinces had dropped below the minimum purchase price of RMB2,040/tonne (US$320).