China’s 2011 crop helps feed other nations

A farmer drives a combine to harvest wheat in Zouping County, Shandong province last May. China, the world’s top wheat producer finished 2011 with a record grain harvest. [Reuters]

China’s agricultural year in 2011 was a triumph of hard work, applied science and entrepreneurial creativity over the weather. While a serious drought continued to afflict some key wheat producing provinces, the total harvest was a greater than ever before.

Total grain production reached 571 million tons, a record. And 70 percent of that came from the northeast region of the country, helped by exceptionally favorable weather patterns there, the Ministry of Agriculture reported.

This reflected patterns across Central Asia, especially Kazakhstan where the major harvest shortfalls of 2010 because of a record heart–breaking heat wave and drought that year were followed by bumper harvests and crop surpluses in 2011.

So successful was China’s harvest that agricultural analysts expect it to stop importing corn for at least the next six months, even longer, if the 2012 harvest proves to be comparable.

And that is already easing global inflationary pressures on food prices in general and grains in particular. China is the world’s second-largest consumer of corn crops.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack acknowledged China’s agriculture aid to other nations during his visit to China Agricultural University in Beijing in November 2011.

“Besides realizing its promise of self-sufficiency, China is also helping to feed more countries abroad, particularly through food aid in recent years,” he said.

China focuses on storing bumper crop

Sinograin, the state-controlled corporation that administers national grain reserves, is focusing on efforts to store the bumper harvest in state granaries, the Business Recorder blog reported Dec. 18, citing Intelligence Co. Ltd. (JCI), a private agriculture consulting firm.

Sinograin bought 3 million to 4 million metric tons of U.S. corn earlier in 2011 to keep China’s food reserves at top levels and to try to damp down domestic inflationary pressures on food prices. But thanks to this year’s harvest, the company’s directors see no need to go to U.S. or other international markets to buy any more at the moment.

This relaxed attitude toward foreign grain purchases stands in striking contrast to 2010 when, despite another record harvest, China became a leading customer for corn imports from the United States.

Business Recorder and Intelligence Co. also noted the highly effective break on China’s inflation caused by the current abundance of grain: In November 2011 China’s inflation levels were lower than they had been in the previous 12 months.

Economic planners fear price collapse

China’s economic planners now have the opposite fear from inflation: They are concerned that the abundance of grain may collapse prices for it and inflict hardship on millions of farmers. To prevent this, Sinograin is purchasing corn from farmers in the northeast of the country to keep a healthy base price for the commodity.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics has published an official estimate that the 2011 domestic corn harvest will amount to 191.75 million metric tons. That will confirm a new national record and it will also exceed even the most optimistic international market estimates.

Even China’s National Grain and Oils Information Centre (CNGOIC), noted for its optimistic assessments, had predicted that the 2011 harvest would come in no higher than 184.5 million metric tons.

However, the official China Daily acknowledged on Dec. 5 that over the summer in 2011, drought adversely affected 4.5 million hectares of crops. The Ministry of Agriculture said 71 percent of these drought-blighted crops were across the heartland in the provinces of Guizhon, Hunan, Yunnan and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Li Maosong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told the China Daily crop losses because of insects were far greater in 2011 than usual. He said that in recent years, the average yearly loss of grain caused by insects had been 268 million hectares. But in 2011 this had jumped to more than 400 million hectares. No less than 15 percent of the crop was lost to such pests, especially red wheat mites and aphids, he said. Li also warned that threat was getting worse.

Drought remains concern

Drought however remains the biggest threat to China’s annual grain production, accounting for about 60 percent of all total crop losses.

However, Ministry of Agriculture and CAAS officials are optimistic about growth trends over the next decade.

First, they have invested heavily in education, teaching farmers across the country modern ways to irrigate their land and protect their crops from pests and other dangers. The China Daily reported that crop yields in Gansu province soared to 8.9 tons per hectare in 2011, way above the average yield of 5.2 tons per hectare for the entire country. Experts attributed this in large part to teaching hundreds of thousands of farmers to cover dry land with plastic sheets to collect rain water and morning dew, minimizing evaporation.

Second, China is energetically increasing its investment in research and in international cooperation with agricultural research institutions in other countries. In April 2011, Beijing launched a joint venture in agricultural research with Brazil. The new laboratory will focus on animal husbandry, genetic resources, veterinary science, agro-ecology and environmental science, China Daily reported. A twin institution will be opened in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.

This institution is planned to be the first of many. At least nine more have been approved and are being set up with such major nations as the United States, Russia, Canada and Germany.

For generations, China was afflicted with terrible famines, but in the 21st century it is not only feeding itself but exporting grain and expertise to alleviate hardship and famine in other parts of the world.

However, China’s agricultural planners know they cannot afford to be complacent. The Ministry of Agriculture projects that by 2020, the country’s population growth will require an annual harvest of at least 572.5 million tons. That will be 47.5 million tons higher than the confirmed harvest for 2010, which was a record.