Despite severe natural disasters this year, China is expected to record a fourth consecutive bumper food harvest and hit the annual output target set for 2010 three years ahead of schedule, a top agriculture official said yesterday.

Minister of Agriculture Sun Zhengcai told a group discussion at the 17th Party Congress that the harvest is expected to exceed 500 million tons this year, the annual output goal set for 2010 in the country's 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).

After three straight years of rising harvests, some agricultural experts were worried that droughts and flooding this year might have affected up to a fifth of the country's arable land and could lead to a decline in the autumn harvest. The country's autumn grain output usually accounts for three-quarters of its annual grain output.

The country has reached its food production targets for the past three years, pushing the total annual output to 497.4 million tons last year.

Together with the rising grain harvests, farmers' incomes have also been surging steadily since 2002 with more government policies designated for their benefits, said Sun.

Statistics show that the net per capita rural income grew by about 1,100 yuan ($150) between 2002 and 2006.

Sun attributed the harvest and income increases to supportive government policies and technological improvements. The central government has initiated various measures targeting agriculture production and rural residents over the past five years.

The measures included scrapping an agriculture tax mechanism that has been in existence for thousands of years. The central government has also invested heavily in agriculture, including offering subsidies for every farming household.

But the minister also warned that agriculture in China, still reliant on traditional farming methods, is in dire need of modernization.

"We should explore proper ways to shift from traditional farming methods to modern agriculture, while taking into consideration the national condition that the country must support a huge population with comparatively little farm land," Sun said.

(China Daily 10/17/2007 page6)