To an agricultural country like China, farmland, essential to grain production, is ingrained in the psyche of the nation and its people.

Based on the understanding of the pivotal role of agriculture to the country's overall development and the people's livelihood, the country has long adhered to a basic national policy of valuing land resources and protecting arable land.

The "2002 China Land and Resources Communique" released by the Ministry of Land and Resources on Thursday disclosed that the total area of arable land shrank by 1.32 per cent last year compared to 2001.

To be more specific, the country lost more than 1.69 million hectares of cultivated acreage last year, or 2.8 times the figure of 2001.

The situation is alarming, as well as worrying, even though the country has been able to boast a steady growth in grain supplies and reserves during recent years.

Continual decline in arable land will add to the pressure of feeding the world's most populous nation as it edges towards the 1.3 billion mark.

In fact, the rosy picture of the country's grain production has resulted in the diminution of astuteness towards farmland protection.

The Ministry of Land and Resources says the structural adjustment of the agricultural sector and the strategy of returning farmland to vegetation based on ecological concerns, were chiefly responsible for the farmland slide last year.

It did, nevertheless, point out that the illegal allocation of farmland for non-agricultural purposes was also to blame.

Admittedly, the country's rapid economic development has added to the pressure of land consumption.

Construction sites are an all too common sight, even in China's medium and small sized cities, these days.

Spiralling land prices have lured some governments in rural areas into selling off their land use rights for greater and immediate economic benefits.

The remaining 125.9 million hectares of totally cultivated land had not, by the end of last year, breached the State-set bottomline of 106.7 million hectares, according to estimates from the ministry. But to ward off the risk of future food crises, the government should take pre-emptive steps to check the decline in farmland.

After all, sufficient grain supply hinges on maintaining a steady amount, and good quality, of arable land.