This year’s summer grain output climbed 5 percent year-on-year to hit 101.1 million tons, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

On that upbeat note, China is planning to expand its acreage devoted to wheat -- the nation’s second most important crop after rice -- by 666,600 hectares for the 2005 harvest. Total winter wheat acreage for 2005 will be 22.7 million hectares.

The added area is expected to increase wheat production by at least 3.5 million tons, said Wang Xiaobing, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture. In China, only 10 percent of the wheat crop is sown in spring.

A good summer harvest usually means a strong agricultural production year, since the autumn harvest is generally used to offset summer harvest shortfalls, experts said.

Summer wheat represents 23 percent of China’s total grain production.

With the summer grain counted, the country’s output of food grain for the whole year is expected to reach the target of 455 million tons, Wang said.

Like last year, 2005 will be another key year for grain production to recover. It slipped from a record high of 512 million tons in 1998 to 430 million tons in 2003.

Minister of Agriculture Du Qinglin said in 2003 that they planned to increase grain output by 45 million tons in three years.

Upon reaching the goal, the country’s grain output would be 475 million tons, generally regarded as a point of balance between supply and demand, with a marginal amount of imported grain, Wang said.

China’s winter wheat growing area has been shrinking: it fell from 30 million hectares in 1997 to 22 million hectares last year, according to the ministry’s information center.

The recent months’ increases in grain production plus the government’s unprecedented support of agriculture, including offering direct subsidies to farmers, provide incentives to wheat producers and help to turn the trend around, according to Wang.

While stabilizing the chief wheat production area along the Yellow and Huaihe rivers, the country will try to expand wheat-growing areas in southwest and northwest China, according to a statement from the ministry.

In addition to reserving more farmland for wheat, the ministry last week proposed 35 varieties of the crop to be disseminated throughout the country.

The strains, selected by a panel of experts, are characterized by such features as high yield, excellent quality and pest- and disease-resistance.

China imported 3.5 million tons of wheat, valued at US$790 million, in the first seven months of this year.

That means imports rose by a factor of 19 from the same period of the previous year, according to Zhang Bingzheng of the General Administration of Customs.

In the same period, wheat exports dropped 36 percent to 585,000 tons, he said.

Cheng Guoqiang, a senior professor with the State Council’s Development Research Center, said the imports have been used to replenish the country’s depleted wheat stocks, and to satisfy consumer demand for special and top-grade wheat products.

(China Daily September 28, 2004)