THE government will continue to take steps to prevent another fall in grain output, part of efforts to ensure sufficient food supplies for the world’s second-largest economy, State radio said Tuesday following a key policy meeting on rural reform.

    The pledge was one of three key pillars of China’s long-term farm policy, the radio report said.

    The others were to boost farmers’ income and stabilize rural communities as the government aims to get more than 10 million people out of poverty in 2017.

    The policy is similar to previous years and comes after the annual Central Rural Work Conference that ended Tuesday. This focused on increasing China’s efforts to modernize and revitalize its vast farming sector.

    China’s grain output dropped slightly this year for the first time in more than a decade, partly due to structural reforms that have curbed planting of some crops and encouraged crop rotation.

    China is the world’s second-largest corn producer.

    (SD-Agencies)