China food concerns shift to vegetables after snow
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BEIJING, Feb 14 (Reuters) - China's priorities in ensuring food supply are shifting from pork to vegetables after bitter winter storms damaged fragile plants across the normally temperate south. Sharp rises in the prices of food in China for more than a year had been originally driven by grains and meat, as a shortage of pigs caused prices to spike and drove inflation to 4.8 percent in 2007, well above Beijing's original target of about 3 percent.
Freak cold and snow across south China over the past month killed 107 people, caused $15.4 billion in direct economic losses, downed power lines, triggered a series of road accidents and stranded millions headed home for the Lunar New Year holiday.
It damaged about 40 percent of the planted rapeseed acreage, 30 percent of vegetable fields and hurt the orange crop, said Zhang Yuxiang, director of market and economic information at the Ministry of Agriculture.
Chicken coops collapsed and chicks and piglets froze, with animal and poultry deaths totalling 69 million, she said.
The cold is widely expected to have helped drive annual inflation to over 7 percent in January, after snow and ice disrupted transport, froze vegetable patches and damaged fruit trees. Food makes up a third of China's consumer price index.
"Generally speaking, there is no problem with supply. Prices have dropped from the early days of the disaster but, due to transport problems in remote areas, prices of some goods are still high," assistant commerce minister Huang Hai told a news conference.
He said prices of cereals, rice and flour remained steady, while the price of pork may rise slightly. Vegetable prices would definitely fall as temperatures rise, but edible oil prices would go up.
"On the whole, the snow will have some impact on China's food prices, but it will not be dramatic", Huang said. "Because of the lower production of soybeans internationally and the damage to the rapeseed crop, cooking prices could rise."
Ensuring vegetable supply and restoring production had become a new priority, the Ministry of Agriculture said. "There were no big fluctuations in the supply of cereals, cooking oil, eggs, poultry, fish or milk," it said. "But in some regions there are still shortages of meat and vegetables."
China had built pork reserves after pork prices soared last summer and had released the meat to tamp down prices ahead of the Lunar New Year, when prices normally rise as hundreds of millions of Chinese head home to feast with their families.
Since Feb. 1, China had released 1,250 tonnes of live pigs on to markets in certain afflicted provinces, the Ministry of Commerce said.
That followed releases of 6,000 tonnes of live pigs between Jan. 21 and Feb. 5, and 17,000 tonnes of frozen pork between Jan. 21 and Feb. 1, it said. (Reporting by Zhou Xin, Lindsay Beck and Niu Shuping; Writing by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Nick Macfie)
BEIJING, Feb 14 (Reuters) - China's priorities in ensuring food supply are shifting from pork to vegetables after bitter winter storms damaged fragile plants across the normally temperate south. Sharp rises in the prices of food in China for more than a year had been originally driven by grains and meat, as a shortage of pigs caused prices to spike and drove inflation to 4.8 percent in 2007, well above Beijing's original target of about 3 percent.
Freak cold and snow across south China over the past month killed 107 people, caused $15.4 billion in direct economic losses, downed power lines, triggered a series of road accidents and stranded millions headed home for the Lunar New Year holiday.
It damaged about 40 percent of the planted rapeseed acreage, 30 percent of vegetable fields and hurt the orange crop, said Zhang Yuxiang, director of market and economic information at the Ministry of Agriculture.
Chicken coops collapsed and chicks and piglets froze, with animal and poultry deaths totalling 69 million, she said.
The cold is widely expected to have helped drive annual inflation to over 7 percent in January, after snow and ice disrupted transport, froze vegetable patches and damaged fruit trees. Food makes up a third of China's consumer price index.
"Generally speaking, there is no problem with supply. Prices have dropped from the early days of the disaster but, due to transport problems in remote areas, prices of some goods are still high," assistant commerce minister Huang Hai told a news conference.
He said prices of cereals, rice and flour remained steady, while the price of pork may rise slightly. Vegetable prices would definitely fall as temperatures rise, but edible oil prices would go up.
"On the whole, the snow will have some impact on China's food prices, but it will not be dramatic", Huang said. "Because of the lower production of soybeans internationally and the damage to the rapeseed crop, cooking prices could rise."
Ensuring vegetable supply and restoring production had become a new priority, the Ministry of Agriculture said. "There were no big fluctuations in the supply of cereals, cooking oil, eggs, poultry, fish or milk," it said. "But in some regions there are still shortages of meat and vegetables."
China had built pork reserves after pork prices soared last summer and had released the meat to tamp down prices ahead of the Lunar New Year, when prices normally rise as hundreds of millions of Chinese head home to feast with their families.
Since Feb. 1, China had released 1,250 tonnes of live pigs on to markets in certain afflicted provinces, the Ministry of Commerce said.
That followed releases of 6,000 tonnes of live pigs between Jan. 21 and Feb. 5, and 17,000 tonnes of frozen pork between Jan. 21 and Feb. 1, it said. (Reporting by Zhou Xin, Lindsay Beck and Niu Shuping; Writing by Lucy Hornby; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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