China’s Agriculture Ministry will promote intercropping of soybeans with corn on more than one million hectares of land this year, seeking to boost output of the oilseed without reducing production of corn.
China, the world’s top soybean importer, said late last year that increasing its output of the oilseed was a political priority, but it has given little detail on how it will achieve an increase.
Output fell 16 per cent in 2021 from the previous year, as some farmers switched to more profitable crops like corn.
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The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in a statement it will promote “strip compound planting,” or growing soybeans and corn in rows alongside each other, on one million hectares of land.
The approach would achieve “basically no decrease in corn output” while adding an extra soybean season, it said.
Soybean acreage had previously been estimated at 8.4 million hectares in the 2021-22 crop year, while corn will be grown on 43 million hectares.
The ministry did not say how much intercropping is currently used, but it has been studied in China for years, and shown elsewhere to benefit soil health and improve nutrients in the crops.
The latest research and new machinery has opened up “a new technical path for expanding soybean planting and improving soybean production capacity,” added the ministry.
China has often cited the need to boost domestic output of soybeans in recent years to secure grain security and cut reliance on imports from the United States.
