The government abolished corn supports to reduce its huge stockpile and plans to cut acres by 8.2 million by 2020
BEIJING, China (Reuters) — China plans to reduce corn planting in parts of the country by one-third over five years and switch to crops such as soybeans or potatoes.
The moves come after the government ended policies that supported corn prices.
China intended to boost domestic soybean production for human consumption, but the world’s top soy buyer would still need to import for feed, said one agriculture ministry official.
Corn acreage will be reduced in areas covering 13 provinces and regions extending from the frozen far northeast, the parched northwest and the desertified southwest by 8.2 million acres by 2020, the ministry said. Around 1.6 million acres of cornfields in these regions deemed unsuitable for corn growing would be reduced this year, while the acreage in core growing areas would be stabilized, it said.
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The pledge comes after China late last month said that it would abolish its corn stockpile system to free up prices.
The policy set domestic price 30 to 50 percent above the global market, leading to record imports of corn substitutes such as sorghum and huge stockpiles of corn.
“The reduction is because we have encountered periodic surpluses of corn, and reserves have increased by a huge margin,” said an agriculture ministry spokesperson.
