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According to the statistics published by the National Bureau of Statistics of China on 664 counties of 26 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, the area of cereal crops will be reduced and rapeseed and vegetable areas will continue to increase throughout the autumn and winter of 2002.
The cereal crop area will be reduced only slightly. The plans of 50,000 farming families show that the area of cereal crops reduces by 1 percent from last year, in which winter wheat accounts for 0.9 percent of the reduction.
The area of rapeseed will increase. According to farmers? intentions, the area of planted rapeseed will increase by 8.3 percent compared with last year, and that of the high-quality rapeseed will increase by 12.1 percent. The highest areas of rapeseed yield are all in increasing. The provinces with rate of increase exceeding 10 percent are Henan, Hunan, Guizhou and Jiangsu provinces. Zhejiang Province and Anhui Province will increase over 5 percent.
Vegetables and other economic crops will continue to increase steadily. The prices of vegetables are stable and profitable, so the areas devoted to planting them have been greatly increasing in recent years. Statistics show that the amount of vegetables to be planted in autumn and winter in 2002 will increase by 6.3 percent. With the increasing need for pesticide-free farming and pasturing, the autumn and winter green manure and natural forage will increase respectively by 8.65 percent and 17 percent.
(china.org.cn, translated by Chen Lin, November 5, 2002)
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