Expansion of man-made rain program to secure grain targets

BEIJING - China will begin four regional programs to artificially increase precipitation across the country before 2015, according to the newly released 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) for meteorological development.

Together with the existing program in Jilin province, to influence weather in northeastern parts of China, the five regional weather control programs will increase artificial precipitation volume by 10 percent, according to the plan.

Each year, an average of 3 trillion cubic meters of water passes over China in clouds, and only 20 percent of it falls to the ground, according to the China Meteorological Administration (CMA).