Rice Supply Remains Self-sufficient in China

Being self-sufficient in rice supply will continue to be a central part of the government's grain security policy in the next century, said Huang Jikun, director general of the China Agricultural Economic Research Centre.

"China's agriculture can still support the government's grain security policy with 94 per cent of it's supply to be domestically produced in 2005," he said.

Huang explained that his conclusion was based on the China's Agricultural Policy Analysis and Simulation Model (CAPSiM), an academic system set up to analyze the government's economic policy-making during the development of a market-oriented economy.

Based on the CAPSiM, it is estimated that after China's entry to the World Trade Organization, the country will produce 140.75 million tons of rice in 2005 with 30.95 million hectares of farmland used. At that time, it will become a net rice exporter.

China's rice exports exceeded 2.7 million tons last year, down 27.8 per cent year-on-year; while imports reached 168,000 tons, down 31.1 per cent, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) information centre said.

MOA officials admitted that the current costs of rice production were high, but outlined the government's resolve to support the agriculture in policy and finance, especially in the infrastructure sector.

With a long history of rice production of more than 4,000 years, China now is comparatively developed in rice breeding and producing technology.

In terms of the per unit yield technology, the US firm Monsanto Co announced last month that it had built the first "working draft" of the rice genome.

Chen Zhangliang, vice-president of Beijing University, said that the "working draft," which was revealed to the Chinese and international public on the Internet, will help facilitate a breakthrough in Chinese scientists' current research in agricultural transgenetic food and bio-technology.

Researchers from Monsanto and the University of Washington managed to decode all 12 chromosomes of rice, "which will aid researchers and scientists in the development of improved types of rice," a Monsanto statement said.

Global rice production last year was estimated at 588.7 million tons, 92 per cent of which came from Asia, according to figures provided by Monsanto.

At present, rice is a commodity making up only 4 per cent of the total global trade volume annually. The four major rice suppliers are: Thailand contributing 36 per cent of the global rice trade; United States, 19 per cent; Viet Nam, 10 per cent; and Pakistan, 7 per cent, experts said.

Because the rice trade is quite erratic in quantity, quality and price in the world market, most countries have worked out a self-sufficient policy for their domestic rice supply.

Taking China as an example, if China planned to increase its rice imports to supplement 10 per cent of its annual rice consumption, the world's rice trade volume would see a considerable jump of 80 per cent, thus triggering skyrocketing prices.

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