BEIJING — China has seen another year with a bumper summer grain harvest despite the impact of adverse weather, official data showed Saturday.
The country’s summer grain output totaled 146.13 million tonnes this year, down 0.9 percent or 1.27 million tonnes year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
“The bumper harvest of summer grain will lay a solid foundation for stabilizing annual grain production, and provide strong support for promoting sustained economic recovery,” said Wang Guirong, an official with the bureau.
China’s summer grain sown area has grown for three consecutive years, rising to 26.61 million hectares in 2023. Over 23 million hectares of wheat were sown, up 0.4 percent year on year.
To galvanize farmers to grow grain, the central government continued to raise the minimum purchase price of wheat, and provided them with one-time subsidies, said Wang.
However, the grain yield per unit area recorded a mild decline, falling 1.2 percent year on year to 5,491.8 kg per hectare this year.
Wang said the decline was caused by widespread and heavy rainfall in wheat-growing regions in north China in late May. Meanwhile, continuous drought in southwest China also dragged down the yield per unit area in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces.
China will stabilize its annual grain output at over 650 billion kg and strive to beat a target of 700 billion kg by 2025 to ensure grain security, according to a five-year plan on farming released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs last year.
