Food security, poverty key areas of focus in 2022, ministry says

Ensuring national food security and preventing large-scale backsliding into poverty are two major tasks of this year's agriculture and rural work, officials with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Thursday.

Zeng Yande, head of the ministry's development and planning department, said China's grain output hit a record high of 683 million metric tons and the sown area reached 118 million hectares last year.

Pork production had fully reached normal level. By the end of last year, the number of breeding sows exceeded 43.29 million and the pork output was 52.96 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 28.8 percent.

The supply of vegetables and fruits is sufficient. The annual vegetable production is estimated to hit 750 million tons, and the fruit production exceeds 290 million tons, Zeng said.

To consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation, over half of the central government's subsidy for rural vitalization were used for developing rural industries, and each county has developed two to three special leading industries.

The per capita income of the population shaken out of poverty has increased by 2,200 yuan ($364.74) by working in rural industry, he added.

China had more than 290 million migrant workers last year, up by 2.4 percent year-on-year, and 15.6 million of them got stable employment at the newly-established industrial parks in their hometown nationwide.

The annual per capita disposable income of rural residents last year reached 18,931 yuan, up by 9.7 percent, with the growth rate 2.6 percentage points higher than their urban counterparts.