Further efforts needed to ensure food security
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-07 09:39

BEIJING, March 7 (Xinhua) -- Despite the remarkable achievement China has made in its grain production over the past years, greater output is still needed to ensure a secure food supply for its 1.3 billion people.

According to the government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao on March 5 at the Fourth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC), China saw a grain output of 480 billion kg in 2005, 20 billion kg more than 2004.

"This indicates the Chinese government has attached great importance to food security and Chinese people are capable of supporting themselves, but we cannot handle the issue of grain production lightly," said Xu Jinglong, an NPC deputy from East China's agricultural province of Anhui.

In recent years, China has poured huge investment into agriculture, reducing the burden on farmers. But the country's grain production sector is still weak in fighting natural disasters.

Meanwhile, decreasing price grain and increasing cost in farming materials have discouraged farmers to work hard in grain production. Food security seems a hot issue for the government andpeople in China.

Zhang Aicheng, a farmer in Anhui, was disappointed after one year's farming. "The grain yield was only enough to live on due tobooming cost of chemical fertilizers," the farmer said.

Zhang had worked in cities for five years before resuming farming in his hometown last year with the hope of earning more money under the favorable policy of free-tax agriculture production.

China's continuous growth in grain output over the past two years has not been enough to surpass the record 500 billion kg in 1998.

While rampant urbanization nibbles away more and more cropland,the population of China is growing toward an expected peak of 1.5 billion in 2030. It is a crucial and global issue to resolve the food security for such a large population.

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