BEIJING — Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), one of the country's biggest lenders, said Monday that it has increased lending to farmers and rural businesses in support of agricultural supply-side structural reform in the first quarter.

The bank's outstanding loans to farmers totaled 1.02 trillion yuan (about $150 billion) as of the end of March, 76.3 billion yuan more than the level at the beginning of this year, said the ABC.

The ABC has enhanced lending support for large-scale and professional farming and other new types of agribusiness, as well as medium-sized and small rural households, according to the bank.

Nearly 20 million rural households in China borrowed some 858.6 billion yuan in petty loans from the ABC since 2008, it said.

Outstanding agriculture-related loans in China stood at 29.23 trillion as of the end of the first quarter this year, up 8.9 percent year-on-year, according to the central bank. The growth was 1.8 percentage points higher than the level a quarter ago.