China's Vice Premier reviews farm output, seeks more soybean production

Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua called for China to expand soybean production at a meeting on spring farm output held in Shandong province, Xinhua reported on Sunday.

Hu also emphasized stabilising planted grains acreage and strengthening farmland protection, reiterating policies previously laid out by central leadership, Xinhua said.

China's top policymakers called for ensuring grain production and oilseed expansion in the new year, at the annual central rural work conference at the end of 2021.

Hu did not give details on how to expand soybean acreage.

The agriculture ministry last month promoted the intercropping of soybeans with corn as one way to boost output of the oilseed.

China would also cultivate land specifically for soybeans and raise yield of the crop, to produce about 23 million tonnes of soybeans a year by end-2025, up 40% from current levels, the ministry said in a five-year plan for agriculture.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the same meeting in Shandong urged good field management and pest disease prevention to strive for another bumper harvest of summer grain, mostly of wheat, Xinhua reported.

China's winter wheat crop was in relatively poor condition at the moment, Li said at the meeting.

Rains have delayed wheat planting in some regions in China, which could delay crop development, while excess moisture could bring more crop disease, the government has said.

(Reporting by Martin Quin Pollard and Hallie Gu; Editing by Andrew Heavens)