A farmer drives a truck at a field in Luzhai county of Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on April 17, 2020. (Photo: Xinhua)

Spring farming is progressing smoothly despite the novel coronavirus outbreak, laying a solid foundation for stable yields, senior officials said at the news conference of Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of State Council on Sunday.

Liu Lihua, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said the area of spring planting is already up over half of the year's number, and the planting area of wheat this spring is projected to reverse a declining trend in the past seven years.

As of Saturday, spring grain cultivation has been done on 12.67 million hectares, taking up 21 percent of the year's plan.