By Lin Tan
DTN China Correspondent
BEIJING (DTN) -- China's Ministry of Agriculture plans to reduce the size of its Corn Belt by 9.5 million acres in the next five years to promote crop diversity and protect the environment, it stated in a recent document.
That would equate to about a 10% reduction in corn acres compared to 2015-16, when Chinese farmers planted 94 million acres to corn.
"China's Corn Belt stretches from northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, to central China and all the way to southwest China's Yunnan Province, and then turning to northwest China's Xinjiang Province, a sickle-shaped region," said Guanghua Xie, a professor at China Agricultural University. "Some of the regions are environmentally fragile."
While the new policy will leave China with fewer acres, Xie said he doesn't expect output to decrease as much because most of the land that will be removed is marginal. He estimates production will decline 12.5 million to 15 million metric tons, or 492 million to 590 million bushels.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, 24.7 million acres of the 94 million planted last year are marginal farmland acres. Instead of planting corn, the government will encourage farmers to grow less intensive crops, such as corn for silage, soybeans, pasture, edible beans, spring wheat, fruits and ecologically friendly vegetation.
Corn acreage has increased rapidly, from 57 million acres in 2000-01 to 94 million last year, as the government continued to increase its subsidy for corn production.
Last year, China's farmers averaged 95.3 bushels per acre, contributing to 12 consecutive years of increasing corn production. Statistics released last week by China's statistical bureau showed that 2015-16 corn production was 224.5 million metric tons, up from 215.67 mmt the previous year.
China's large corn stockpile -- some analysts estimate there is more than 150 mmt in the state reserve -- has become a political and financial burden to the central government. Earlier this year, China lowered the floor price it pays for corn, and analysts speculate the program will come to an end in the next year or two.
Xie said the new policy may not lead to a direct impact on corn import volumes because China wants to consume its historically high stockpiles first. But, in five to seven years, the production decline could lead China to be a larger buyer in the international marketplace.
During the years of the corn boom, some farmers planted corn on marginal land while others switched acres from other crops, and China's becoming increasingly concerned about the impacts of the expansion.
(KM/AG)
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