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China to ensure grain self-sufficiency
By HENRY SANDERSON,Associated Press Writer AP - 2 hours 5 minutes ago
BEIJING - China is aiming to produce virtually all the grain it needs for at least the next decade despite a growing population and declining farmland due to urbanization, climate change and other factors.
The goal is for China to keep producing more than 95 percent of its grain needs until 2020, said Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, China's powerful economic planning body.
"We must basically rely on ourselves to ensure grain supply," he said as he introduced a policy plan for grain self-sufficiency and security.
"The short supplies of grains across the world have led to unstable situations in quite a few countries and this has sounded alarm bells to us," Zhang told a news conference.
China says basic self-sufficiency in staple grains for its 1.3 billion population is a national strategic priority, but its steadily growing population, urbanization and pressures on arable land are making that more difficult.
"The decrease of farmland and shortage of water supply and climate change have had an increasing negative impact on grain production," he said. "The grain supply and demand of China will be in a tight balance for a long period of time."
While increased urbanization has improved people's lives, it has also increased grain consumption. China's population is projected to reach 1.4 billion people by 2020 and 1.5 billion in 2033, putting more pressure on food security.
China will strictly control the use of arable land, Zhang said, in a reference to the expansion of industrial and housing projects into rural China.
Available arable land in 2007 shrank by 6.8 percent from 1996, according to the policy plan.
Wang Xiaoyi, an agricultural analyst at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the self-sufficiency plan aims to make China less dependent on imports from countries such as the U.S. and Australia.
It will also reduce energy consumption and climate change by shortening the distance goods are transported, Wang said.
The policy paper said farms have to become more efficient and the transportation and storage of grains must improve. China should also access international markets to import grain and oil when needed, it said.
To improve productivity, exchanges of land rights by rural dwellers should be promoted to enable development of bigger and more intensive farming businesses, the paper said.
Last month, China's Communist leaders approved a rural reform allowing farmers to lease or transfer their land to raise rural incomes and slow speeding migration from farms to the cities with the aim of raising investment in farming production.
Rural families now rent land from local governments on 30-year leases, and village and local officials hold sway over its use or transfer. Land is often expropriated by village officials with little compensation.
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