(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-01-31 16:02

The Chinese government has vowed to ensure supply of farm produce, "a pressing job at present," which was threatened by heavy snow that has fallen since mid-January, the worst in five decades.

Supply shortages are causing another round of price rises for agriculture products, for instance those which make up essential daily food.

Southern regions where farmers grow crops over winter were stricken severely by the bad weather, said leading agricultural policy decision maker Chen Xiwen on Thursday.

"The blow was especially hard on vegetable production, which was ruinous in some places," he said.

The already tightened supply was further stretched by disrupted transportation, which was also caused by continuous snow and sleet over much of China.

In order to protect agriculture, which is "still the weakest link" in national economy, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council, or China's Cabinet, jointly issued the first document of this year.

One of its aims was to ensure stable prices of agriculture products, which would prevent China from slipping deeper into the predicament of high-flying inflation.

Since food has a weighting of 32.74 percent in the CPI, the stable supply of such commodities, farm produce in particular, will be a decisive factor behind China's efforts to curb inflation.

The public has started to feel the pressure as vegetable prices escalated across the country. In Changsha, Wuhan and other hard-hit cities in the southern, central and eastern regions, vegetable prices have more than doubled. Areas not affected by snow, such as Beijing and the southern Guangdong province, have also seen price rises.

"Greenhouse vegetables sold in Beijing relies relatively on transport from the south. There were more than 10 trucks with a load of 20 tons before, now there's only one or two coming because of the snow. When a truck comes, we all swarm to it however high the price is," said Huang Tianlu, a 45-year-old wholesaler at Xinfadi market, the largest produce market in Beijing.