BEIJING: China, the world's number two sugar importer, is planning a sixfold increase in irrigated area in its top sugar growing region by 2020 as it attempts to step up yields and protect farmer incomes in one of its poorest regions. 

Only 6 per cent of the cane crop in southern Guangxi is currently irrigated, according to the 2015-2020 sugar production plan released on Thursday by the country's top economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). 

It wants the irrigated area to rise to at least 36 per cent, helping to push sugar yields to more than 5 tonnes per mu (75 tonnes per hectare) by 2020, up from 4.6 tonnes at present. 

China is under pressure to boost sugar yields as farmers are abandoning the crop in favour of less labour intensive alternatives, leading to a drop in the area planted to sugar in the main growing region. 

"China is the world's third-largest sugar producer, but production efficiency is much lower than in Brazil, India, Thailand and Australia and other countries," said the document, adding that China's cane production costs are nearly double those of other major producers. 

It forecast China's sugar consumption will reach 18 million tonnes by 2020, with a production deficit of 3 million tonnes. 

The NDRC targetted a rise in irrigation by 2020 for the combined 540,000 hectare crop in Guangxi and neighbouring Yunnan province to 39 percent from about 9 percent at present. 

Irrigation has been shown to have a significant impact on yields. Drip-irrigation systems can boost yields to 120 tonnes per hectare on Guangxi sugar farms, said Abed Masarwa, technical manager at Israeli supplier Netafim. 

While the NDRC predicted Guangxi's cane acreage would remain stable at just over 1 million hectares, that figure is well above a recent estimate of 867,00 hectares for the coming season. 

Efforts to introduce more mechanisation to lower labour costs have been slow, due largely to small farm sizes and hilly terrain. 

"In our opinion, only 10 percent of the land is suited to imported machines and work on other machines made in China is still in the research stage," said Ou Yinggang, professor at South China Agricultural University.