CHINA planned to invest US$30 billion on water conservation projects in 2011 to reduce the impact of natural disasters on grain production, domestic media said Saturday.
The report comes after severe flooding and droughts across the country this year destroyed crops and drove up food prices, pushing inflation to its highest level in more than two years in November.
The investment up 10 percent year on year would go towards improving irrigation and projects to combat weather-related disasters, China Daily said, quoting water resources minister Chen Lei.
China had invested a little over US$100 billion in water projects in the past five years, the report said.
We have to accelerate the construction of water conservation facilities as one of the key infrastructure measures the country needs to secure increasing grain production, Chen was quoted saying.
The consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, topped 5 percent last month as food costs soared nearly 12 percent year on year, official data shows.
Ever-fearful of inflation s historical potential to spark unrest, the government has ordered a range of steps to boost supplies of key goods, crack down on speculators and offer financial help to the most needy.
After one of the country s worst years for natural disasters, the government estimates that more than 80 million people will need food relief this winter, the Xinhua news agency said last month.
A leading agricultural expert last month warned that climate change could trigger a 10 percent drop in China s grain harvest over the next 20 years, threatening the country s food security.
Tang Huajun, deputy dean of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, warned crop production could fall by 5 to 10 percent by 2030 if climate change continued unchecked, media have reported.
China, which is expected to produce 546.4 million tons of grain in 2010, plans to increase output to 550 million tons by 2020 to ensure food security for the world s most populous country of more than 1.3 billion.(SD-Agencies)