Although China has not suffered famine for more than 40 years, surging grain prices earlier this year set off alarm bells in China's leadership over the nation's food supply.
But analysts say Chinese grain prices have stabilised over the past few months thanks to favourable weather and Beijing's efforts to lure farmers back to the land.
"China's grain shortage is a local or regional issue. It is not an issue for the country as a whole," said a China expert from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, who declined to be named.
China is expected to import 6-7 million tonnes of grains, mostly wheat, this year, which is a reversal from 2003 when it was a net exporter.
Concern about bird flu and Sars has scared some consumers away from poultry, which in turn has touched off a decline in feed grain demand.
"China's bird flu did and is still providing some impact on its grain demand, particularly feed grain," the USDA analyst told Reuters by e-mail.
Alarmed by big grain price hikes that began last October - the first in about seven years - Beijing introduced measures to boost grain output, including tax cuts, subsidies and protection for farmland.
Now, China looks set to achieve or surpass a government target for grain production of 455 million tonnes in 2004, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu was recently quoted as saying.
Chinese cereal output fell to 431 million tonnes in 2003, the lowest in 13 years, as farmers shifted away from grains to cash crops or to work in the cities after years of low prices.
But even with this year's improvement in output, most private analysts believe China was in transition from excess supply to chronic tight supply. The country will likely be self-sufficient in good years but will need to import in bad crop years.
Despite a grain shortfall estimated by China's State Grain Administration this year of 37.5 million tonnes, traders believe China is unlikely to buy much wheat or rice in the near future, because of healthy state reserves.
"They will import a little bit of wheat. But I don't think it is going to be very much," said Frederick Crook, an independent analyst at the Utah-based China Group.
"State administration for grains reserve still have wheat stocks, wheat consumption is actually stagnant. They are eating more animal products, fruits and vegetables," he said.
The traders estimated China had booked deals to import about 8 million tonnes of wheat since last October from the United States, Canada, Australia and France, with 2 to 3 million tonnes yet to be shipped.
As in Chinese rice imports, the analysts said, quality was the main issue behind wheat imports - rather than quantity. China is short of high-quality wheat to make bread.
"Wheat imports are used for refilling the depleting stocks of good quality wheat that has been put on auctions lately," said the USDA China expert. "In general, China's total wheat stocks are still at quite normal levels."
Ha Jun, a researcher at the State Council Development Research Centre said in July Chinese grain stocks stood at about 165 million tonnes, which is substantially lower than the 270 million tonnes held in 1998.
Analysts expect China, the world's number-two corn exporter in 2003, to begin importing corn into the south in the next couple of years.
Chinese demand for corn - mainly used for animal consumption - was not growing quite as fast as expected, because of bird flu and Sars concerns.
The 2004 corn crop is seen rebounding to 125 million tonnes from 116 million in 2003.
Some said Beijing's credit tightening had taken a toll as cash was difficult to come by for the feed mill and livestock industries, while grain prices were higher than a year ago.
"In the long run ... northern provinces will continue to export corn, while southern provinces will start importing corn," Xu Xiaoqing, a researcher at the State Council Development Research Centre, told Reuters.
"The transport problem to move corn from northern areas to the south is becoming more and more obvious."
Analysts said transport bottlenecks within China were also behind the spikes in corn, wheat and rice prices in southern China over the past year.
Some traders did not exclude the possibility of Beijing re-introducing subsidies for corn exports if domestic prices drifted lower after the harvest begins in September.