Epidemic prevention and control measures nationwide have had limited effects on spring sowing, and the overall summer grain crop is predicted to be better than expected despite floods last autumn hitting wheat planting, officials with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on April 20.

Pan Wenbo, director of the ministry's planting management department, said epidemic prevention and control measures in rural areas are stable and the risk of farm workers becoming infected with the virus in the fields is relatively low.

Some farm workers reported that the epidemic prevention and control measures in some areas had hindered the transportation of agricultural materials, and that it would affect their spring sowing.

By the end of March, only 68 percent of fertilizer had been distributed in Jilin, the province with the second most domestic cases of COVID-19 recently after Shanghai.

Given the inconvenience caused by the rigid preventative measures in some areas, the ministry has set up channels including hotlines and WeChat public accounts to provide targeted support for farm workers.

The ministry dispatched a team to Jilin, a major grain producing area in China, to guide the epidemic prevention work and agricultural production last month.

Agricultural production in some virus-stricken regions has gradually recovered. Agricultural resources in Jilin have been distributed to rural stores and households.

"Currently, the distribution of agricultural resources is generally normal. The overall supply of seeds, pesticides and fertilizers is ensured and the distribution work nationwide is more than 90 percent complete," Pan said.

So far, 231,000 farm workers who had been stranded elsewhere have returned to Jilin, Pan said.

In Shanghai, the latest outbreak has affected the raising of rice seedlings covering 2,000 hectares. "We can make up for the loss by exchanging this rice for other varieties or directly sowing the rice seeds," he said.

As of April 19, spring plowing nationwide was 21.2 percent complete, and the planting of rice seedlings in Northeast China was 74.2 percent complete. Large-scale corn and soybean planting will begin in May.

Zeng Yande, head of the ministry's development and planning department, said the country has launched a project to increase the capacity of soybean and oil crops nationwide.