Drought may have caused far more severe damage to China's corn crop than official reports have revealed, with a second analysis group in two days revealing weak hopes for the harvest.

Shanghai-based JC Intelligence has pegged the harvest at 145.9m tonnes.

The figure is 16.6m tonnes short of the latest US Department of Agriculture forecast, and 20.6m tonnes below an estimate made three weeks ago by the China National Grain and Oils Information Centre, China's official grain think tank.

The JC Intelligence report comes a day after Informa Economics cut by 3m tonnes to 156.5m tonnes its forecast for the harvest.

Damage estimate

JC Intelligence blamed its revision on drought during August in major growing areas.

The Dalian Commodity Exchange has reported that crops will be wiped out by a dearth of rainfall in areas of Inner Mongolia, with analysts saying that even in irrigated areas output will drop by 30%.

About 9.7m hectares of farmland are suffering drought, with 6m people and 5.6m head of animals short of water, according to data released by China's Office of State Flood Control and Drought relief over the weekend.

And drought fears have been cited by some analysts as a reason behind the growing popularity of China's weekly corn auctions.

While the first, in July, attracted minimal interest, the latest, on Tuesday, sold 1.92m tonnes out of 2.5m tonnes on offer.

China built up a stockpile estimated at 36m tonnes after its record corn crop of 166m tonnes last year.