The agricultural sector in China’s Sichuan province has suffered enormous damage estimated at around $6 billion caused by last month’s devastating earthquake, the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organisation) said overnight.According to an FAO assessment mission that recently visited Sichuan province, over 30 million people in rural communities have been severely hit, losing most of their assets. Thousands of hectares of farmland were destroyed, millions of farm animals died, houses and... ...Read more »

The destructive earthquake, which hit the south of China last week, could have repercussions worldwide in terms of food production. For now, though, prices and supplies are unlikely to be effected. The earthquake has destroyed over 75,000 acres of farmland in the Sichuan province, an important growing area in China for rice, wheat and corn, with 12.5 million livestock and poultry dead. Wei Chao’an, China’s vice minister for agriculture, told a news conference that the earthquake... ...Read more »