From the beginning of the year the country has directed great efforts to taking measures for coping with drought in different areas.

The General Office of the State Council recently issued a notice calling for preventing drought damage in a scientific way and through a mass campaign and properly managing fields in spring.

It also underscored the need to closely observe and timely forecast the drought situation and ensure drinking water for people and domestic animals in drought-stricken areas.

The Ministry of Agriculture also issued an urgent notice calling for implementing relevant policies and measures to cope with a long spell of drought in major winter wheat producers.

Meanwhile, new irrigation facilities have been constructed in the country.

Jilin Province plans to rebuild existing irrigation networks, build three more networks, improve waterways and disseminate water-saving irrigation technologies this year.

Sichuan Province plans to reinforce some two hundred reservoirs and introduce afore-said technologies to farmland.

Heilongjiang Province schemes to increase rice fields about 227,000 hectares more than the previous year.

Jiangxi Province has set a goal of rearranging about 93,000 hectares of land till 2012.