China plans to invest RMB12.7 billion (US$1.85 billion) in upgrading lower-yield farmland this year, according to the State Office for Comprehensive Agricultural Development.

The investment aims to transform 1.77 million hectares of lower-yield farmland into high-yield farmland, which would add about 3 billion kg to China's total annual grain production capacity.

About RMB7.69 billion (US$1.12 billion), or more than 60 percent of the investment, will go to the 13 major grain producing regions of Hebei, Henan, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Sichuan and Anhui provinces as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Calculated on a three-year basis, lower-yield farmland has 20-percent less output than the regional average. Measures to upgrade the farmland will vary from places and major means include the improvement of irrigation and road systems; transform mountainous farmland into terraces, making it easier for machines to work; improve soil quality by increasing organic matter content in the soil; and to improve farming efficiency by training the farmers.

The office said 35 water-efficient projects for medium-scale irrigated regions will be commenced this year with an investment of RMB301 million (US$43.8 million).

Recent years of modernisation has turned China's farmlands into industrial or residential zones, forcing the country to draw a critical line of 120 million hectares as the official minimum of arable land. Statistics said arable land has dropped to 121.73 million hectares last year.

The Ministry of Agriculture is expecting the fifth consecutive bumper harvest of summer grain this year. The ministry said summer crops, which usually represent about 23 percent of total annual grain output, would exceed the 115.34 billion kg produced in 2007.

In the past two decades, China has invested about RMB320.3 billion (US$46.75 billion) in the development of agriculture. China yielded about 500 billion kg of grain last year.