September 10, 2009
China's grain output to suffer limited impact from drought
The severe drought that has ravaged China since August is expected to have limited impact on the autumn grain output thanks to the increased planting acreage this year.
As of September 1, the drought had affected eight million hectares of cropland, a decline of 4.73 million hectares from the peak but still slightly higher than the average level in the past several years.
Chen Mengshan, spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, said that the planting area for crops in northeastern regions rose greatly this year, especially for the high-yielding crops such as corn and rice. He added that the crops in non-drought areas are growing well as well.
According to Liu Lihua, another official with the ministry, China's planting area for autumn crops reached 75 million hectares in 2009, an increase of 860,000 hectares over last year, which may compensate for the output losses caused by the drought.
