The State Cereal and Oil Information Center (SCOIC) has reported that by the end of harvest season this year, China's wheat output reached only 86 million tons, a year-on-year drop of 5 percent.

The country's wheat output dropped for the fourth year to the lowest level since the mid-1980s, the SCOIC said in its latest report issued early this month.

The SCOIC attributed the reduction of wheat output to the shrinking planting area, which amounted to 22 million hectares this year, the lowest since 1950, and 7.9 percent down from 2002.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the planting area of wheat in the coming winter, which is to be harvested in summer next year, is likely to be 3.8 percent lower from last winter.

The planting area is still reducing in some main wheat production provinces as the planting season draws near, the ministry said.

Farmers will keep refusing to grow wheat if the price remains depressed, said An Lufang, an official with the provincial grain bureau of central China's Henan Province.

The country reported a total grain output of 96.22 million tons after this harvest season ended, 2.4 percent down from last year.

Outside of east China's Shandong Province, north China's Shanxi Province and central China's Henan and Hubei provinces, grain-growing provinces reported an output reduction this year. The biggest drop of 800,000 tons fell on north China's Hebei Province.

(Xinhua News Agency October 20,2003)