BEIJING: China's top grain producing region plans to increase subsidies for corn growers as a stocks glut eases, and will keep soybean subsidies at high levels for a second year running, official media reported.
The increase for corn marks a reversal from last year when the government was still trying to encourage farmers to reduce corn acreage as it sold off mammoth stocks of ageing grain.
However, soybeans will attract a much bigger subsidy after Beijing pledged to expand domestic soybean output this year amid a bitter trade war with the United States.
China's Heilongjiang province will also promote rotation from rice to soybeans in the new year, according to the provincial agriculture ministry, the party-run Heilongjiang Daily reported.
The northeastern province nearly doubled subsidies for soybean farmers last year to 320 yuan ($47.67) per mu - a Chinese measure of land equal to 0.06 hectare (0.14 acre) - while slashing corn subsidies to 25 yuan per mu, from about 134 yuan in 2017.
Heilongjiang is China's top grower for both soybeans and corn, with farmers there switching between the two crops based on which will be more profitable in a given year.
Subsidies for soybean growers will be maintained at about 300 yuan per mu, the Heilongjiang Daily said. It did not give a figure for the increased 2019 corn subsidy, but said the figure for soybeans would still be more than 200 yuan higher than for corn.
Beijing said last month that it will further increase subsidies for farmers in northern China to help expand acreage in the region.
China has been seeking ways to reduce its reliance on U.S. soybeans, although the two sides have recently been in talks aimed at ending the trade dispute.
Beijing has also been whittling down its huge corn stockpiles, but the world's No. 2 consumer of the grain will likely sell off the last of its ageing stocks this year, an agriculture ministry official said earlier this year.
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