--FILE--degli agricoltori cinesi di trapianto di piantine di riso in un campo di riso in De' Un county, città Jiujiang, Cina orientale della provincia di Jiangxi, 26 giugno 2016. Cina
--FILE--Chinese farmers transplant rice seedlings in a rice field in De'an county, Jiujiang city, east China's Jiangxi province, 26 June 2016. China has vowed to step up its protection of farmland in the wake of the country's first drop in grain output in over a decade, as rapid urbanization swallows agricultural resources. In a document released late on Monday (23 January 2017), the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council said there was strong pressure on arable land and called for stronger protection and more efficient use of such land. China's 2016 grain output fell 0.8 percent from the year before to around 616 million tonnes, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Monday. The nation also had a shortfall of about 20 million tonnes in the amount of grain it produced and consumed, Xinhua said. China aims to retain at least 124.33 million hectares of arable land in 2020, with no less than 103.1 million hectares of permanent farmland and at least 53.3 million hectares of high-quality farmland, the document said.
