Chen Xiwen

Agriculture and rural economy in the first half of this year have run stably in despite of severe drought. The achievement is attributable to the implementation of guidelines adopted at the central government's conference on rural work by localities and local departments. It is also the result of their efforts in guiding structural adjustment,promoting scientific and technological progress as well as developing industrialized management in agriculture, with target of increasing farmers' income.

I.Agricultural production

In the first half of this year, the agricultural production is plagued by severedrought, which damaged summer grain crops and brought difficulties for spring sowing in many regions. At the same time, the structural adjustment has continued, with focus on optimizing breeds, reducing grain crops and expanding cash crops.

(1) Grains: It is inevitable to see a reduction in summer grain crops and earlyrice and the production of autumn crops is still plagued by drought.

According to the investigation of statistics departments, the sown area of summer grain crops is 424 million mu, a decrease of over 20 million mu overthe previous year or a damp of 4.5 percent (statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture show a sown area of summer grain crops of 408 million mu or a fall of 8.1percent). By the end of May the area of summer grain crops hit by drought had reached 130 million mu, among which 50 million mu suffered disaster and 4 million mu had crop failure. It is estimated that total output of summer grain crops will be 204 billion jin, with a further reduction of 10 billion jin on the basis of a decrease of 23.4 billion jin the previous year (the Ministry of Agriculture estimates a total output of summer grain crops of 201.6 billion jin and a decrease of 12 billionjin). It is estimated that the sown area of early rice will be 92 million mu, a decrease of over 9 million mu compared with the previous year, while its estimated output willbe 64 billion jin, a decrease of 6 to 7 billion jin over the previous year.

The estimated sown area of autumn grain crops is 1.07 billion mu, a decrease of12 million compared with the previous year or a drop of 1.1 percent. However, dueto the severe drought in the north, especially in Northeast and eastern Inner Mongolia that had late sowing time, it is difficult to transplant rice seedlings andsow corn seedlings. The seedlings that were transplanted have difficulties to grow. In the first half of June when the worst drought appeared, the drought-hit area of nonirrigated farmland reached 420 million mu nationwide while 20.8 million mu of paddy fields had shortage of water and 22.6 million rural population confronted temporary problem in drinking water. Since the middle of June the northhad rainfall, which alleviated the drought in some areas, but by July 1 there were still 186 million mu of nonirrigated farmlands and 7.2 million mu of paddy fields that suffered drought and lack of water respectively. And 11.8 million rural population still had temporary shortage of drinking water. As a result, if the drought in the north cannot be alleviated in the near future, autumn grain crops, especially the corn in the Northeast and North will suffer continuous reduction after the substantial decrease in the previous year.

Given the harvest of summer grain crops and early rice as well asthe growth of autumn grain crops, it is estimated that the total grain output inthe whole nation will reach 900 billion jin, about 20 billion jin less than the previous year.

(2) Cash crops: Area of cash crops to expand continuously and some products to have surplus supply over demand

The estimated summer rapeseed area of 115 million mu will show an increase of over 2 million mu over the previous year, whose total output can be maintained at 10.6 million tons or increased slightly. The area of cotton will reach 72 million mu, which will record an increase of over 11 million mu over the previous year, while the area of oil-bearing crops will be 240 million mu with an increase of around 9 million mu. It is also estimated that the area of sugar crops will be 24.5 million mu, a rise of 1.8 million mu, while the estimated area of vegetables will reach 248 million mu, an increase of 19million mu. The adjustment in the area of crops in the first half of this year showsthat cotton will continue to increase production by large margin on the basis of nearly 600,000 tons in the previous year, whose estimated total outputwill be 5 to 6 million tons with supply over demand; the areas of vegetables have reached 0.2 mu per capita in the whole country, and since the first quarter this year, however, farmers have witnessed reduction in their income despite increased sales.

(3) Livestock products and aquatic products: stable increase and slight change in structure

In view of the fact that the price of pigs started to pick up fromthe latter half of last year, from January to May this year the price of the main livestock products increased to some extent compared with the same period of the previous year. As a result, the production of livestock products will continue to go up steadily. It is estimated that the total output of meats in the first half of this year can exceed 20 million tons, an increase of more than 3 percent over the same period of the previous year. And the growth rate of beef, mutton and poultry meat willcontinue to be higher than that of pork, meanwhile the output of poultry eggs will report slight decrease, while dairy products will be on a fast increase. The outputof aquatic products will be 4 to 5 percent higher than that of the first half of theprevious year.

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