China increases soybean planting area

A staff member performs quality testing on randomly-sampled soybeans at a grain trading company in Suihua of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Oct 25, 2022. (Photo/Xinhua)

China's planting area for soybeans reached 10.26 million hectares, the highest since 1958 and an increase of 1.82 million hectares year-on-year, an agricultural official said on Wednesday.

The output of the crop, which used to be heavily reliant on imports, rose to 20.28 million metric tons, 3.89 million more than in 2021, said Zen Yande, chief agronomist of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

While speaking at a news conference held by the State Council Information Office, Zeng said China's grain output last year, which hit 686.5 billion tons, had reached an all-time high and stayed above the 650-billion-ton benchmark set by central authorities for the eighth consecutive year.

Rapeseed output edged up 1.1 percent to 36.53 million tons last year. The increased supply of the crop, coupled with a national campaign to encourage frugality in the catering sector, has resulted in a 1.6 percentage point increase in the self-sufficiency rate of China's overall cooking oil production, said Zeng, who also heads the ministry's development and planning department.

He added that pork production increased 4.6 percent from a year earlier and hit 55.41 million tons.