Yuan, director of the National Hybrid Rice Engineering Technology Research Center and a faculty member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, made the remarks at the World Expo’s third theme forum, which opened on Sunday in Wuxi, in east China’s Jiangsu Province.

The new hybrid, the phase-III super hybrid rice, was expected to yield 13.5 tonnes of rice per hectare, Yuan said.

The previous hybrid, the second-generation super hybrid, was released for commercial production in 2006, yielding 9 tonnes of rice per hectare, on average

Rice is a major food crop that feeds more than half of the world’s population, Yuan said.

China is now planting 440 million mu (29 million hectares) of rice per year, with an average output capacity of 6.3 tonnes per hectare.

Among the acreage, hybrid rice accounts for about 57 percent of the total, with an average output capacity of 7.2 tonnes per hectare.

“The average yield of hybrid rice is at least 20 percent more than that of inbred rice, feeding 70 million more people annually,” Yuan said.

China is faced with a challenging grain situation this summer because of strong rainfalls in the south during the summer harvest season. Other problems include droughts in northern grain production areas and lingering low temperatures in the south.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, China needs to maintain an annual grain output of 500 million tonnes to feed the nation’s 1.3 billion people.

China’s summer grain output rose six years in a row to top 123.35 million tonnes in 2009, which was 2.6 million tonnes more than the previous year.

“Hybrid rice will play a key role in ensuring food security worldwide in the new century,” Yuan said.

“If 50 percent of the world’s rice paddies were planted with hybrids, rice production could be increased by another 150 million tonnes, and 400 to 500 million more people could be fed,” he said.

Yuan believes food security is “a war people can not afford to lose” .

“The global economic downturn will always end, but food security is the problem we have to face every second,” Yuan said.

Statistics from the United Nations showed about 1 billion people were suffering from hunger and malnutrition and every six seconds saw a child dying of hunger or related diseases.

With the theme “science & technology innovation and urban future”, the two-day forum focuses on innovations in science and technology.

The previous two theme forums of the World Expo centered on communications and cultural heritages.

Yuan started working on hybrid rice in 1964.

“I often drive my car to go to rice paddies to do research,” said the 80-year-old, “The only difference is that when I was young, I rode a bicycle or motorcycle ….you could attribute it to improving life.”

Hybrid rice has also been commercialized in other countries, including India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Bangladesh and the United States.

“For the benefits of the world’ s people, we are well prepared to help other countries develop hybrid rice,” he said.

China had raised minimum purchase prices for wheat and rice again in 2009, by 13 to 17 percent, to add income for farmers, said Nie at a national meeting in Beijing.

The measure of minimum purchase prices increased peasants’ income by about 40 billion yuan ($5.86 billion) last year, he said.

Administration figures showed State-run grain enterprises bought 163.2 million tons of grain last year.

The Administration has been promoting reforms among State-run grain enterprises and reported 18,163 State-run grain enterprises by the end of 2009, down 65 percent from 1998.

Participants at the three-day annual Central Economic Work Conference agreed that the global financial crisis highlighted the urgency to transform China’s economic development pattern.

They agreed that the government should coordinate efforts to maintain stable and comparatively fast economic growth and speed up the transformation of the economic development mode.

The Central Economic Work Conference, held once a year to set the tone for next year’s economic development, comprises policy-making officials from central and provincial-level governments, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.

The conference outlined six major tasks for next year’s economic work: to improve macro-regulation to ensure stable and relatively fast economic growth, advance economic structure adjustment to lift quality and efficiency of economic growth, boost rural development momentum, deepen reform and opening up to enhance momentum and vigor of economic growth, promote stable export increase, improve people’s livelihood and maintain social stability.

The government would continue efforts to boost domestic demand, especially expand people’s consumer demand, and make consumption contribute more to boost economic growth, according to a statement released after the conference.

The government would also seek to push recovery of exports and promote balanced international trade, it said.

More efforts would be spent to deepen economic system reform and enhance the momentum and vigor of economic growth.

The government vowed to balance the tasks of ensuring a stable and relatively fast economic growth, adjusting economic structure and managing inflation expectations next year.

This was the second time the government mentioned about managing inflationary prospects in a national event after a State Council meeting in October picked the issue as one of the key points in macro-regulation for the rest of 2009.

The country would maintain the continuity and stability of macro-economic policy and continue implementing the proactive fiscal policy and moderately easy monetary policy.

This was revealed by Secretary for Foreign Affairs Ambassador Joey Bimha at a symposium on China-Africa and China-Zimbabwe relations.

“There are indeed ongoing negotiations for contract farming arrangements in the agricultural sector. The greatest impact of Chinese involvement in Zimbabwe has been in the agricultural sector, which as you know is the backbone of the economy,” he said.

China has provided US$260 million to Zimbabwe to support the agricultural sector for the purchase of inputs and machinery.

“We have been able to acquire equipment, implements and critical inputs for the revival of this sector.

“This support for the agricultural mechanisation programme has been complemented by the secondment of experts in the areas of animal disease control, fisheries and grain,” said Ambassador Bimha.

Zimbabwe has also been designated as one of the 10 countries in Africa to host the first 10 agricultural demonstration centres in Africa.

Apart from the support in agriculture, China has also supported the countriy’s mining and manufacturing sectors with the China-Africa Development Fund acquiring shareholdings in Zimasco and uranium joint ventures with the Zimbabwe Mining Development Company.

Chinese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Xin Shunkang, yesterday said they had provided at least US$300 million to the country in the past three years and urged the strengthening of ties between the two countries.

“In the past three years, the total amount of aid that the Chinese Government provided to the Zimbabwean Government is approximately US$300 million.

“Let’s make joint efforts to push China-Africa, China-Zimbabwe friendship to a new height,” he said.

Visitors chat as they take a break in a courtyard enclaved with blooming flowers at Yangling Agricultural Hi-tech Fair in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province Nov. 3, 2009.

Citrons and lemons on a grafted tree is presented at Yangling Agricultural Hi-tech Fair in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province Nov. 3, 2009

Plants are presented in containers coverd with blue jeans at Yangling Agricultural Hi-tech Fair in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province Nov. 3, 2009.

Seminar and Promotion Activities
In conjunction with the expo, there will be holding global seed industry summit and a series of seminars and conferences，inviting speakers like technical experts and industrial professionals, featuring issues on the property right control and the latest development and prospects of seed industry.

China International Seed Summit 2009
Time: November 25th-26th，2009
Venue: Guangzhou Dongfang Hotel
Organizer: Agricultural Trade Promotion Center, MOA
CCPIT-Specialized Sub-council of Agriculture
Sponsor: DuPont-Pioneer Seed Company
Monsanto Far East Limited.
Phone: (+86 10) 5919 4401
Email: yuantong@agri.gov.cn

In Shandong, one of the country’s major wheat-growing areas, jets and rockets were used to bring rain and ease the drought that had hit 800,000 hectares of farmland by the end of October, the China Meteorological Administration said.

Cloud seeding brought Anhui province as much as 40 mm of rain over the weekend, easing dryness since September, the bureau said in a report on its website (www.cma.gov.cn).

Seeding coupled with a sharp fall in temperatures also brought the winter’s first snow to the capital on Sunday.

Beijing Weather Modification Office used 186 doses of silver iodide since late Saturday, which brought additional snowfall of more than 16 million tonnes equivalent, said the official Xinhua news agency.

“We won’t miss any opportunity of artificially inducing precipitation since Beijing is suffering from the lingering drought,” Xinhua cited weather official Zhang Qiang as saying.

Chinese farmers completed planting this year’s winter wheat at the end of last month. China has said it will try to persuade farmers to stabilise planting acreage. China harvested 2 percent more winter wheat or nearly 110 million tonnes this year.

While the moisture was good for winter wheat, sharp temperature falls can damage vegetable crops and kill young livestock, warned the Agriculture Ministry.

Source: Reuters

Canada is the world’s biggest exporter of canola, crushed for oil used in the vegetable oil and biofuel markets. China was Canada’s top canola seed importer last year, buying 2.8 million tonnes, though it is an inconsistent buyer year to year.

But Chinese authorities have told Canada they will not accept canola seed from Nov.15 without a certificate showing it is free of blackleg. The restriction covers canola seed used in oil and meal processing, but not seed meant for replanting.

“Some buyers learned the problem last week and have washed out two cargoes,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

ICE Canada November canola closed down 4 percent on Thursday with traders saying the news led to the drop.

Blackleg can reduce yield or kill plants. It is common in Canada canola seed, but is also present in much of the world, including China, so it should not be regulated, the chief of the Canola Council of Canada, JoAnne Buth, said in an interview.

“There should not be this kind of stringent requirements for something that’s going for processing,” Buth said. “It doesn’t seem legitimate.”

More cancellations could happen as the disease is common in Canadian canola crop. Chinese buyers have already booked more than 1 million tonnes of new canola crop from Canada, said one trader with an international trading house in China.

Traders said the move would stop imports completely. Chinese buyers said they did not dare to book more new cargoes.

Two Chinese buyers told Reuters they were not clear whether the date referred to was the loading date in Canada or the cargoes’ arrival date.

Chinese quarantine authorities have not informed buyers in China and could not be reached immediately for comment.

“Some cargoes cannot be washed out, who will take them? We would see how authorities tighten inspection,” said one Chinese buyer.

The move came as Chinese farmers plant rapeseed, a crop Beijing has been buying for state reserves from farmers over the past two years to try to shore up prices.

But cheap imports had pressured domestic prices of the cooking oil, popular in the country’s south.

The news has driven up domstic prices of rapeseed oil futures, with Zhengzhou prices rising 2 percent in morning trade.

China’s rapeseed imports jumped 265 percent in the first eight months of this year to 2.19 million tonnes, after a previous record year high.

At the same time, China’s record harvest prompted the government to build large rapeseed oil reserves to support domestic prices.

China and ASEAN countries inked “Nanning Consensus” on stepping up agricultural exchange and cooperation at a summit forum held on Monday in Nanning, capital city of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

“Agriculture is a major field for strategic cooperation among China and the ASEAN members, which is an important part of the construction of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (FTA)”, said Qin Ruixiang, deputy director of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Guangxi.

The parties identified seven areas as the priorities for exchange and cooperation, including agro-industry and food security, new crop varieties and animal breeds, agricultural sciences and technology, biomass energy, agricultural processing and logistics, animal husbandry and fishery.

They also vowed to optimize the allocation of resources such as labors and funds, expand cooperation on technology and personnel training and intensify agricultural investment in ASEAN.

The summit forum was held ahead of the 6th China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning to be held from Oct. 20 to 24.

An agricultural exhibition of 600 booths would be held for the first time at the expo, which aimed at expanding opportunities for agricultural cooperation among China and the ASEAN countries, Qin said.

China and the ASEAN countries launched the early-harvest program in 2004, which set to scrap tariffs on about 600 agricultural imports in both sides by 2006. The program was part of the FTA framework agreement signed by China and the ASEAN countries in 2002.

Xu Ningning, Secretary General of China-ASEAN Board of Commerce (China) said the program had boosted agricultural production in the region and accelerated trade of agricultural products.

Data from the China’s Ministry of Agriculture showed China’s agricultural exports to ASEAN hit 4.58 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, up 16 percent from a year ago, and agricultural imports from the ASEAN rose 30.2 percent year on year to 9.24 billion U.S. dollars.

Rasphone Sitaheng, minister of Agriculture and Forestry of Laos, introduces the development of Laos’ agriculture during the China-ASEAN Agricultural Cooperation Summit Forum in Nanning, southwest China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on Oct. 19, 2009. More than 200 experts and representatives from Asean countries, Russia, the United States and Isreal attend the forum which kicked off here on last Monday.

This week’s broad-based commodities market rally on the back of the tumbling dollar, which lifted prices for corn, soybeans and wheat to multiweek highs, has largely offset the weak dollar’s benefits, traders and analysts said.

“The prices have gone up precipitously here in a short amount of time and that has actually cut our exports back,” said Don Roose, analyst with U.S. Commodities.

“The weaker dollar has not compensated for the run-up that we’ve had,” he said.

U.S. corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade rose to a 3-1/2 month high this week, soybeans hit a six-week high and U.S. wheat reached a 10-week peak as the U.S. dollar fell to a 14-month low against a basket of major currencies.

A weak dollar is traditionally viewed as a catalyst for exports of dollar-denominated commodities like corn, soybeans and wheat because it increases the buying power of those holding other currencies.

Wheat is a particularly currency-sensitive commodity because the grain is exported by far more countries than corn and soybeans.

But U.S. wheat export sales projections have declined in tandem with the sinking dollar due to ample global supplies of cheaper wheat and comparatively higher U.S. shipping costs to key markets.

Egypt, one of the world’s top wheat importers, bought 180,000 tonnes of French wheat this week, passing on U.S. offers which were $18 to $20 a tonne more expensive.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its projection for 2009/10 marketing year U.S. wheat exports this month to 900 million bushels, down 50 million bushels from its previous month estimate. Some traders said the export outlook could slip further despite the dollar’s weakness.

“The futures market is trading the dollar prematurely rather than waiting to see if we actually get demand from a weaker dollar. The market has kind of made up for the currency move almost one-for-one,” said a U.S. wheat trader.

Source: Reuters