China says quake losses won't spark food price hikes
Posted: 18 May 2008 0747 hrs

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BEIJING : China's earthquake caused massive losses to agriculture but will not trigger major food shortages or price hikes, the vice-minister of agriculture said Saturday.

The 7.9 magnitude quake destroyed 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of cropland and left 12.5 million livestock and poultry dead in China's top food producing province, said vice minister Wen Chao'an.

"The quake has severely damaged a large amount of agricultural infrastructure and made it very difficult to restore agricultural production after the disaster," he told a press conference.

However, ministry officials said that production would be stepped up in other provinces to make up for any shortfall and that prices and food supplies would remain largely stable.

"This quake may affect agriculture in the earthquake zone but it will not have any fundamental impact on the overall supply situation in China," Wen said.

Sichuan province where the earthquake struck is China's top food producing province in terms of arable crops and livestock. It produces 60 million pigs a year.

A dozen counties close to the epicentre of the quake were leading producers of meat, grain, food oil and vegetables, said Wen.

The top economist at the ministry, Zhang Yuxiang, said prices of pork and vegetables, forced up after freak winter storms hurt agricultural production in February this year, were now falling.

"Overall agricultural production is in good shape across China and in the coming months we will step up efforts so that production of all the major agricultural produce makes up for losses in the earthquake zone," she said.

More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died in the earthquake, China's worst natural disaster in a generation.

- AFP/ir