Beijing: Natural disasters may block any increase in China's grain production this year as the worst floods in a decade ruin crops.

Flooding cut harvests of early rice in the major growing areas of southern China, Xinhua News Agency cited Vice Agriculture Minister Chen Xiaohua as saying on Friday during an enquiry on grain safety. Crops in low-lying areas of the country's fertile northeast were also damaged, he said.

China's corn imports in July surged after traders bought the most overseas grain in more than 10 years to replenish shrinking domestic supplies. Early rice production this year fell 6.1 per cent to 31.3 million tonnes, the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Friday. China grows almost a third of the globe's rice and cotton, and produces about half its pork.

No shortage

"This year's weather will not reduce the output," Chen Shuwei, a manager at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant said in a telephone interview. "China will not have a shortage in the next one or two years."

Low temperatures due to floods delayed the ripening of winter wheat by five to seven days, and spring sowing in the northeast by seven to 10 days, Chen said. The decline in rice output won't stop overall summer grain production from equalling the levels of previous years, making it China's seventh year of bumper harvests, Xinhua quoted Chen as saying.

Heavy rain in the northeastern province of Liaoning since July flooded the Yalu River on the border with North Korea, the region's second-worst overflow since 1949.

Officials at the enquiry said they are confident in the coming autumn harvest, which produces more than 70 per cent of China's annual grain output, Xinhua said.

The report cited Chen as saying the seeding area has been increased, and quoted Zhang Xiaoqiang, a vice minister of economic planning, as saying enough grain is in storage to prevent shortages.

A rise in global grain prices won't affect prices in China due to its ample reserves, Zhang said. Imported wheat, corn and rice equal less than 1 percent of China's output, he said.