Crops in China suffering in Drought

From: China Daily

Warm winter weather combined with the prolonged drought that has gripped a wide swathe of China have put crops at risk across the country, officials have said.

Unseasonably high temperatures last winter caused wheat, the country's second most important crop after rice, to grow extraordinarily fast in many areas, making it more vulnerable to drastic weather changes, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday.

The average temperature during the past winter was minus 2.4 C, nearly 2 C higher than normal, official statistics showed.

In addition the warm weather allowed insects and bacteria survive the winter, meaning farms could expect to see more pests and diseases this year, he said.

For example, at least 840,000 hectares of wheat, mostly in Central China, are suffering from yellow rust disease, a kind of fungus that affects plants, according to ministry statistics.

"We must bring the infection under control or it could spread to other key grain producers, like Hebei Province in North China, Henan Province in Central China and Shandong in East China," Wang told China Daily....

At least 13.5 million hectares of farmland in China had been hit by drought by the end of last month, according to the latest statistics from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

The situation has aggravated water shortages in North China and could affect spring ploughing, a Xinhua report quoted Tian Yitang, deputy chief of the headquarters' general office, as saying.

For example, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has 1.01 billion cubic meters of water reserves, less than half the total in normal years, the Beijing-based headquarters said in a release.