Irrigation promises to cultivate bigger yields

TAIYUAN - High-efficiency irrigation that gets the most out of the water it uses could increase grain yields by 6,000 to 9,000 kilograms a hectare and is expected to be used on 51 million hectares of farmland by 2020, a top water resources official said on Monday.

Chen Lei, the minister of water resources, said at the National Rural Water Conservancy Work Conference in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province, that the country's food production would be boosted by investing 5 billion yuan ($762 million) a year on expanding the use of the state-of-the-art irrigation. The first expansion will target 18 million hectares during the next five years.

Currently, half of China's farmland relies entirely on rainfall for its water supply, he said.