August 12, 2004

 

 

China Shanxi Autumn Grains Acreage Up 6% On Year

 

Farmers in northern China's Shanxi province have sown 2.21 million hectares of autumn grains so far this year. The figure is up 120,688 hectares or 5.8% from the same period last year, the People's Daily reported Thursday.

 

In China, autumn grain varieties are sown in late summer or early fall, and germinate and mature in the following months. But these varieties usually require more irrigation and yield less than the same varieties sown in the spring, analysts said.

 

Shanxi province's autumn corn acreage grew to a record high of 933,333 hectares this season, the report said, without elaborating.

 

China was the world's second largest corn producer and exporter in 2003, behind the United States. Shanxi is in China's corn belt.

 

But autumn corn is not a significant variety, since China's main corn crop is sown in the spring and harvested in August and September, analysts said.

 

China's annual grain output peaked at 512 million metric tons in 1998 and has been falling for five years, hit by both bad weather and reductions in acreage.

 

But a jump in the summer grains harvest so far in 2004 is likely to reverse the trend of declining production, according to reports from various government agencies, although the summer harvest comprises only around a quarter of China's total annual grains production. Most of the summer grains harvest has been completed.

 

In an effort to further boost grains output, the Chinese government has also allocated direct farm subsidies for grains farmers and has forced the state-owned grain trading companies to compete with private companies in a less controlled primary market.

 

In past weeks, grains acreage is said to have increased sharply in major production regions such as Jiangxi, Hunan, Anhui, Hubei and Heilongjiang provinces, according to state media reports.

 

Meanwhile, thanks to a good summer harvest and the government subsidy, Shanxi farmers earned RMB 233.2($1=RMB8.28) per capita in the first six months of this year, up 26.3% from a year ago, said the People's Daily.