(NDAgConnection.com) – With winter grain sowing across China completing over 99 percent, experts said on Saturday that the smooth sowing this season has laid a solid foundation for the harvest next year, ensuring nation’s food supply while facilitating economic growth despite the downward pressure.

As the autumn and winter grain sowing season is drawing to a close, China has completed 99 percent of winter wheat and oilseed rape planting across the nation, data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MOA) showed on Saturday.

“We finished sowing by mid-October, generally the same time comparing to previous years,” Song Kun, a farmer in Huaibei, East China’s Anhui Province, told the Global Times. He planted 20 mu (1.33 hectares) of winter wheat this year.

This year’s winter wheat sprout is the best in recent years, the report said, citing Lü Xiutao, an official from MOA. Lü noted they will work on stabilizing the wheat planting area above 335 million mu and to strive for an output growth.