December 27, 2006

China to preserve grain-growing area

China will strive to ensure that there is no diminution of the land area set aside for growing grain next year, said an official with the Ministry of Agriculture.

The country plans to preserve at least 105 million hectares of land for growing grain, or 11 percent of its land area, said the ministry's party secretary Sun Zhengcai at a recent national agriculture work conference in Beijing.

The country also wants to improve grain output per unit of land area by at least 1 percent year on year, said Sun.

China's grain growing land area dropped from 113 million hectares in 1998 to a record-low of 99 million in 2003.

The area rebounded to an estimated 104 million hectares last year as a result of government's incentive policies to grain growers and strict control of land development for non-agricultural use.

From January to November, the government detected 77,400 cases of illegal land use, 13.6 percent up year on year, with the area of land involved surging 78.2 percent to 59,600 hectares, according to the Ministry of Land and Resources.

China now wants to retain at least 120 million hectares of arable land by 2010. The current arable land area stands at 122 million hectares.

To do this, the country would work on effective pest control measures, disaster prevention and relief and agricultural mechanization, said Sun.