II. Agriculture
In 2008, the sown area of grain was 106.70 million hectares, an increase of 1.06 million hectares as against previous year; the sown area of cotton was 5.76 million hectares, a decline of 170 thousand hectares; the sown area of oil-bearing crops was 12.71 million hectares, an increase of 1.39 million hectares; the sown area of sugar crops was 1.93 million hectares, an increase of 130 thousand hectares.
The total output of grain in 2008 was 528.50 million tons, an increase of 26.90 million tons or up by 5.4 percent over the previous year. Of this, the output of summer crops was 120.41 million tons, up by 2.6 percent, and that of the early rice was 31.58 million tons, maintaining the same level of the previous year. The output of autumn grain was 376.51 million tons, an increase of 6.7 percent.
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Graphics shows the figure of industrial value added of China from 2004 to 2008 issued by National Bureau of Statistics of China on Feb. 26, 2009.(Xinhua/National Bureau of Statistics of China) |
In 2008, the output of cotton was 7.50 million tons-- a decrease of 1.6 percent over the previous year-- oil-bearing crops was 29.50 million tons-- up by 14.8 percent-- and sugar crops was 130.00 million tons--rise of 6.7 percent--
tobacco was 2.60 million tons--up by 19.6 percent--while tea was 1.24 million tons, an increase of 6.4 per cent.
The total output of meat for 2008 reached 72.69 million tons, up by 5.9 percent. Of this, the output of pork was 46.15 million tons, up by 7.6 percent, and beef and mutton was 6.10 and 3.76 million tons, down by 0.5 percent and 1.8 percent,
respectively. At the end of the year, 462.64 million pigs were registered in the total stocks, up by 5.2 percent, and 609
.60 million pigs were slaughtered, up by 7.9 percent. The production of milk was 36.51 million tons, up by 3.6 percent,
while the total output of eggs was 26.38 million tons, up by 4.3 percent.
The total output of aquatic products was 48.95 million tons, up by 3.1 percent. Of this, the output of cultured aquatic products was 34.26 million tons, up by 4.5 percent; and that of fished aquatic products was 14.69 million tons, maintaining the same level as that of the previous year.
The total production of timber for the year 2008 reached 78.94 million cubic meters, an increase of 13.2 percent.
Over 1.179 million hectares of farmland was increased with effective irrigation systems and another additional 1.390 million hectares of farmland was guaranteed by water-saving irrigation systems.