South China province denies grain shortage speculation

BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific - Political
Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring
South China province denies grain shortage speculation
April 15, 2008 Tuesday


This article reports on the alleged grain shortages in the souther Chinese province of Guangzhou. Administrators denied a report purpoting that Guangdong was facing a grain deficiency of of as much as 24 tons a year. Authorities statethat there are both sufficient reserves (between 10 and 25 days), and that the price of grain is stable and moderate enough that the Chinese people need not horde rice.
Guangdong, one of the most affluent Chinese provinces, has only 2 million hectares of cultivated land. This means that though the province has maintained maximum grain production for the last 10 years, that maximum is barely 40% of the grain consumed by the province. Suggesting that, as the urbanization trend continues, more and more strain will fall on the agricultural distribution sysytems required to import grain, ultimately doomed to inefficiency or failure.