China’s Grain Harvest Stays Above Target for Eighth Year Running

China’s grain output managed to remain above the goal of 650 million tons for the eighth consecutive year, despite a string of severe natural disasters and the impact of outbreaks of Covid-19 on farming activities.

China’s grain harvest edged up 0.5 percent this year from last year to 687 million tons, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics today. The high yield is mainly due to a bigger planting area. The grain planting area nudged up 0.6 percent year on year to 118 million hectares while output per hectare dipped 0.1 percent to 5.8 tons.

High temperatures and drought in southern China badly affected the autumn grain crop but supportive government policies and a higher standard of farmland helped the autumn harvest increase by 2.1 million tons from a year earlier to 511 million tons, said Wang Guirong, director of the rural department of the NBS.

Corn, soybeans, potatoes and rice are the main autumn grains, and the autumn harvest accounts for 70 percent of the country’s total grain production each year.

The summer grain harvest, which is mainly made up of wheat, edged up 1 percent from a year earlier to 147 million tons, according to previous data from the NBS. And early-rice production, which is calculated separately, inched up 0.4 percent to 28.1 million tons.

Overall, there was adequate sunlight, irrigation and temperatures in the main farming areas, and not much damage from pests and diseases, Wang said. Weather conditions were in general favorable but a heatwave and drought in the Yangtze River basin during the summer and heavy flooding in parts of northeastern China did adversely affect crops.

For the autumn harvest, soybean output surged 23.7 percent from a year ago to 20.2 million tons and corn production gained 1.7 percent to 277 million tons. But potato output sank 2.2 percent to 29.7 million tons.

The soybean planting area expanded 21.7 percent this autumn from a year earlier to 10.2 million hectares, and yields per hectare advanced 1.6 percent, which is why there was such a big jump in soybean production, Wang said.

The corn planting area dipped 0.6 percent to 43 million hectares, but the yield per hectare gained 2.3 percent. While the planting area for potatoes dropped 2 percent to 7.2 million hectares and yields slid 0.2 percent. The rice harvest dipped 2 percent year on year to 208 million tons and the rice yield contracted 0.5 percent, he added.

Tags: grain, rice, soybeans, Production, crop, yield, output, planting area, China, harvest, corn