China plans to increase its annual grain production capacity to
approximately 500 million tons by 2010, a key target for the drive
of building a new socialist countryside, according to an official
report in Beijing on Monday.
"Efforts should be made to push China's overall grain output
capacity to around 500 million tons through stabilizing and
improving grain production, in a bid to realize basically self-
supply and national food safety," read the Draft Guidelines for the
11th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development,
which are being discussed at the annual full session of the Chinese
parliament, the Tenth National People's Congress ( NPC).
China's grain output reached 484.01 million tons in 2005, up 3.
1 percent than the previous year, according to a latest report by
the National Bureau of Statistics.
The 500-million-ton goal requires an annual output growth of at
least 25 million tons of grain, or an annual increase of 1 percent
in the per unit yield from the current 309.5 kg per mu (0.07
ha).
Priority should be given to the development of agricultural
production, particularly the protection of arable land,
acceleration of technological innovation and upgrading the
agricultural structure, according to the draft national development
blueprint for the period of 2006-2010.
China faces a great challenge in maintaining food supply safety
given a growing population, shrinking cropland and scarce water
resource, said Huang Peijin, an expert of rice breeding.
Huang, also a NPC deputy from the central province of Hunan
attending the on-going legislative session, called for large-scale
application of the technology of "super rice," or high-yield hybrid
rice, in the rural areas, saying it is an important way of ensuring
food supply for China's 1.3 billion population.
China launched a national project on super rice breeding in
2005, which is expected to cultivate some 20 high-yield rice
strains in six years.
Yuan Longping, China's "father of super rice", said last
December that as the first two phases of the project yielded 10.5
tons and 12 tons per hectare in pilot farms in 2000 and 2004,
respectively, and the latest variety is well on track to produce up
to 13.5 tons a hectare compared with an average of 6.5 tons per
hectare for conventional seeds.
Yuan developed the world's first hybrid rice strain in 1974 and
increased rice output by 15 to 20 percent.
A sound grain output is essential for the world's most populous
country, which has became a grain importer. Whether China can
maintain a stable grain output is crucial to its food safety,
farmers' income, and the global grain demand-and-supply
relationship, experts said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2006)