China's annual grain production is expected to hit a new high of 520 million tons over the next five years but rising consumption will still result in a shortfall, a top government think tank said yesterday.

 

Consumption is likely to surge to 550 million tons in 2010, when the population is projected to reach 1.345 billion.

 

In addition to soybeans, the country might need to import around 20 million tons of grain in 2010, the last year of its 11th Five-Year Guidelines period, estimated Cheng Guoqiang, deputy chief of the State Council Development Research Center's (DRC) Market Economy Research Institute.

 

In China, the main cultivated grains include rice, wheat, corn and soybeans.

 

Stockpiles and imports will ensure that there is no threat to food security in the short term, even with consumption outpacing production, according to Han Jun, a division director of the DRC. But he added that China's food supply will become a more pressing problem in the long run because of an irreversible increase in food demand as a result of population and income growth as well as accelerated urbanization.

 

Agricultural officials and policy advisers have been analyzing data and making forecasts on supply and demand as the country's top legislators prepare to meet for their annual session early next month to discuss the country's new five-year plan.

 

The key to guaranteeing food security is to raise production by increasing productivity, Han said.

 

Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin said the country will strive to raise grain production capacity to 500 million tons annually during the 11th Five-year Gudielines period (2006-10) by improving per-unit yield.

 

Starting this year, China will activate a "grain production capacity enhancement program" which includes measures to render more policy support to the agricultural sector, protect farmland, stabilize crop acreage, and improve the quality of arable land, Du said.

 

Du added that the ministry will see to it that per-hectare harvest tops 4.88 tons between 2006 and 2010, compared with an average of 4.42 tons over the previous five years.

 

China's domestic grain needs are expected to increase by at least two million tons annually, pushing its total demand to up to 550 million tons in 2010, Han said, quoting the latest forecast by DRC's Department of Rural Economy.

 

In addition to per-unit yield, grain output is also contingent upon crop acreage, which is unlikely to expand by a big margin in the years ahead, according to Han and his colleagues Qin Zhongchun and Zhang Yunhua.

 

Accordingly, it might be difficult for the country's total grain output to surpass 520 million tons by 2010, they said.

 

Cheng of the DRC said that to ensure food security, the country must rely on its own production, while importing "appropriately."

 

"The food security of a populous country is more than just economics and trade," Cheng said. "A drop of 1 percentage point of China's grain output means extra imports of nearly 5 million tons or 2.5 percent of the world's total grain trade volume."

 

Li Xiaozhong, a farm trade expert with the Southern Yangtze University in east China's Zhejiang Province, yesterday said it is for the country to use the international market to ensure its food security.

 

(China Daily February 24, 2006)