China's crops badly damaged by icy storms: AgMin

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Agriculture Ministry said on Wednesday that the unusually harsh winter had dealt a serious blow to the country's wheat and vegetable crops and warned that damage could rise because of persistent cold.

The ministry said in a statement on its Web site that 103 million mu of farm crops had been hurt by the freak weather, which has plagued southern, central and eastern China over the past week.

Of that total, it said 11 million mu had been ruined, while another 53 million mu were badly damaged.

The crops affected included rapeseed, vegetables, wheat, tangerines and tea leaves, although the ministry did not specify how much of each had been damaged.

Beijing is sending out experts to the most damaged areas: Hunan, Guizhou, Hubei, Anhui, Shaanxi, Henan, Jiangxi and Jiangsu.

"They will survey the damage and lead rescue work, to guide these areas to resume winter production as quickly as possible and ensure efficient market supply of farm products," it said.

Grains traders and industry officials were most nervous about damages to rapeseed, an oilseed grown mainly along the Yangtse River that is harvested after March.

While record vegetable oil prices have raised the country's rapeseed acreages this year by possibly as much as 30 percent from a year earlier, any crop loss would lead to higher imports of edible oils or oilseeds, including soybeans.

"The most important thing to watch out for is the local rapeseed crop," said a trader at an international house in Shanghai.