More than 70 days of extreme temperatures and low rainfall have wreaked havoc along the Yangtze basin, which supports more than 450 million people as well as a third of the country’s crops. Although rain is expected over the next 10 days, farmers near the depleted Poyang Lake in central China’s Jiangxi province, which is normally a floodgate for the Yangtze, worry that the heat has already done too much damage. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register The agriculture ministry in an emergency alert on Tuesday called on farmers to harvest and store rice and take action to boost grain growth in the coming weeks. In areas where the drought has already caused severe damage, farmers are encouraged to switch to late autumn crops such as sweet potatoes, but this is not an easy task. “We cannot switch to other crops because there is no land,” said Hu Baolin, a 70-year-old farmer in a village on the outskirts of Nanchang, the provincial capital of Jiangxi. He said his plants, including canola and sesame, were much less developed than in normal years, and his pomelo trees were only a third of their usual size. Nearby wells were severely depleted and a bunch of geese milled around a pond that had dried up completely about 10 days ago. Villagers were also battling a nearby fire. “Don’t let people see and think I brought you here on purpose. You can go wherever you want (in this village), that’s all.” The agriculture ministry said on Tuesday that the warm weather posed a “serious threat” to autumn grain production and urged local governments to “do everything possible” to find more water. read more Drones were deployed in southwest China’s Sichuan province on Thursday to break up clouds and bring down rain, while other areas along the Yangtze mobilized firefighters to spray parched crops, state broadcaster CCTV reported. A villager tries to put out a fire with a mop during a drought in Xinyao village, Nanchang city, Jiangxi province, China, August 25, 2022. REUTERS/Thomas Peter read more Analysts saw rice production as the most vulnerable. “I think the biggest impact of the heat will be on the rice crop – maize is also having problems but not as much,” said Ole Houe, director of advisory services at agricultural brokerage IKON Commodities in Sydney. China, the world’s largest consumer and importer of rice, was already expected to import a record 6 million tonnes in 2022/23, according to US Department of Agriculture estimates.
EXTENSION OF POWER CONSTRUCTION
Chongqing and Sichuan province in the southwest are reeling after more than two weeks of temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) – causing crop damage, forest fires and power cuts. read more Factories in Chongqing were initially ordered to limit production from August 17 to August 24 to conserve energy, but the restrictions have now been extended and normal operation will not resume until weather conditions improve and authorities approve a restart. read more Although national meteorologists lowered the heat alert level from “red” to “orange” from Tuesday, temperatures are expected to exceed 40 degrees Celsius in some parts of Chongqing, neighboring Sichuan and other parts of the Yangtze Delta by the weekend. Low rainfall also affected the lower reaches of the Yangtze, including Zhejiang and Jiangsu on the east coast. Water levels in Lake Tai, which lies between the two provinces, have fallen to their lowest level in 20 years despite the diversion of 500 million cubic meters of the Yangtze River since mid-July, the Ministry of Water Resources said on Thursday. China’s water ministry said on Aug. 11 that the drought had already affected nearly 33 million mu (22,000 square kilometers) of arable land and 350,000 livestock, but the final impact is likely to be much greater. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by Xiaoyu Yin and Thomas Peter in Nanchang and Naveen Thukral in Singapore. Additional reporting from the Beijing newsroom. Written by David Stanway. Editing by Lincoln Feast, Tom Hogue and Elaine Hardcastle Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
