BEIJING, March 3 -- It may seem obvious, but the Ministry of Agriculture is very serious: if the country's grain production grows faster than its population, food security will be no problem.

    "We will ensure our annual grain output increase by 1 to 1.5 percentage points during the 2006-10 period, which is 0.6 points faster than China's population growth, then we can rest assured with the food security issue," division director Chen Mengshan said yesterday.

    The goal translates into producing an additional 5 million tons of grain a year, the chief of the ministry's Department of Crop Production told a briefing in Beijing.

    Although the official projection is not yet available, experts estimate China's population will hit 1.345 billion in 2010, from its current 1.3 billion.

    The country harvested 484 million tons of grain in 2005, up by 10.5 million tons year on year, statistics of the ministry showed.It was the second consecutive year that grain output has increased.

    Historically, however, the country has been caught in a spell where after two years that enjoy an increased grain output, a slump will follow the next year, according to Chen.

    To break the cycle, the ministry yesterday formally initiated a "grain production enhancement programme," Chen said.

    The programme, tailored for the 11th Five-Year period (2006-10), will focus on improving per-unit yield of major crops, he said.

    In China, food grains include rice, wheat, corn, soybean and other miscellaneous crops.

    "We will use applicable technology and fine seeds for each crop to help increase their production," he said.

    The ministry will see to it that by 2010, per-unit harvests will grow by 1 percentage point a year so that by 2010, per-hectare will reach 4.88 tons,

    The ministry will make sure the country's grain acreage will not shrink, while the fertility of farmland will be significantly improved.

    Over the past nine years, China's farmland has shrunk by 8 million hectares, according to Chen Xiwen, a senior agricultural researcher.

    Another aspect to improve is to minimize the impact of natural disasters on grain production. In the past five years, such disasters have incurred a loss of 25 million tons a year in China.

(Source: China Daily)