More drought problems for China’s farmers: this time it is soybean growers in Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang that are affected. The region, China’s main soybean growing area, is experiencing its lowest rainfall in more than half a century.
The forecast for June promises no relief. More than half Heilongjiang’s crop area–6.2 million hectares–has been hit by [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘agriculture’
June 2, 2009
Drought In Northern China Hits Soybean Crop
April 22, 2009
Beijing Suggests China’s Farmers Stay At Home
We noted earlier this year that Chinese farmers were looking to till African and Latin American soil, with a couple of examples of groups of Chinese families farming on those continents and exporting back to China. Now Niu Dun, China’s deputy agriculture minister, is distancing Beijing from such efforts, saying that China wants to depend [...]
February 4, 2009
North China Plain Drought Spreads
The northern plain has now gone 100 days since the last rainfall. The agriculture ministry says 9.3 million hectares of China’s wheat-growing heartland is now suffering a severe drought, with 60% of the wheat crop in Henan province and 70% in Anhui province in danger of failing.
The area affected is 40% larger than that struck [...]
February 3, 2009
China’s Wheat Growing Provinces Now On Drought Red Alert
The northern plain is now on Red Alert for drought. Henan, China’s leading grain producing province, is reporting the driest conditions since 1951, with two-thirds of its wheat-growing acreage affected. Anhui and Shanxi provinces are similarly drought-struck, Xinhua reports. As this Bystander previously noted, the finance ministry has allocated 100 million yuan ($14.6 million) in [...]
January 31, 2009
Chinese Farmers Seek To Till African, South American Soil
Yesterday’s post on the drought in the wheat lands of the northern plain prompted an e-mail (always welcome, but please also free feel to share as a comment) asking whether anything happened about Beijing’s plans to lease farmland in Africa and South America.
This was a hot topic of conversation a year back before the commodities [...]
January 31, 2009
China’s Wheat Growers Face Drought
Drought is the latest potential natural disaster in the making. The main wheat growing province, Henan, is very dry, having had half its normal rainfall since last September. The provincial meteorological bureau has just issued its highest-level drought warning, Xinhua says.
The agriculture ministry said earlier this month that one third of the province’s crop was [...]
April 29, 2008
Beijing Looking To Lease Foreign Farmland
China has already gone abroad to secure supplies of energy and minerals by investing in mines and oil fields, so why not do the same for food? The Beijing Morning Post quotes Xie Guoli, a senior trade promotion official with the agriculture ministry, as saying that China is looking at leasing farmland in Russia, South [...]
February 18, 2008
Snowed Under On The Farm
The return of snow and ice to southwestern Yunnan province, leaving clean-up crews struggling to cope with more blackouts, disrupted transport and stranded travelers, highlights both the fragility of China’s material infrastructure and the remarkable depth of its human resources to respond to a civil emergency on such a scale.
Meanwhile, the snow alert has been [...]
