Rain ruins millions of tonnes of wheat ahead of harvest
Continuous rain and high humidity across China’s wheat-production base have left large swathes of the crop blighted or affected by sprout damage, threatening yields in the world’s largest producer and consumer of wheat.
Millions of tonnes of unharvested wheat have been affected by unusually heavy rain in Henan province – which accounts for more than a quarter of China’s wheat output – and in neighbouring areas, according to an estimate by an agricultural analyst.
The damage from the pre-harvest deluge, which started on Thursday and stretched into this week, prompted the local government to set up a 200 million yuan (HK$221 million) emergency fund yesterday to help farmers.
Beijing has put unprecedented emphasis on ensuring adequate food production, and it recently warned provincial governors and party secretaries that they must “shoulder the responsibility of food security”.
Farmers in the province, as well as other wheat-growing regions such as Anhui, Hubei and parts of Shaanxi, have seen wheat kernels suffer from pre-harvest germination, also known as sprout damage. Wheat has also been infected by blight.
Images of affected crops have been widely circulated online and in local media coverage, with farmers lamenting their losses.
China produced more than 137.7 million tonnes of wheat last year, according to official figures.
“At least 20 million tonnes of wheat have been affected” by the recent rain, said Ma Wenfeng, a senior analyst with Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy, adding that the damaged crops “will be refused by food-processing companies and probably end up as animal feed”.
“Such a phenomenon normally occurs once every three or four years, but the scale of the fields affected this year is rare.”
The damage was likely to lead to price rises as state grain reserves made big purchases to ensure ample stocks amid Beijing’s food-security push, he said. “It will bring up domestic prices, and probably global prices as well.”
Wheat prices in China have been on the decline for the past year due to good supply outlooks and surging imports, as the price of the grain in overseas markets fell more than at home.
Henan has rolled out 10 emergency measures, including dispatching 30,000 combine harvesters and more than 4,600 grain dryers to curb the losses, the official Henan Daily reported.
“Wheat that suffers preharvest sprouting won’t sell for a good price, nor can it be used for our own consumption. Also, the overall yield could drop by a third,” a cadre in Zhongmou county was quoted as saying by news platform Xibu Juece.
The province has also been embroiled in controversy for bureaucratic delays in the clearing of harvesting machines.
Trucks carrying 185 harvesters from other parts of China were prohibited from exiting a highway last week because they had not completed the required paperwork, sparking online criticism of delaying the crop harvest right before the rain started, the Henan Business Daily reported. The trucks were not allowed to leave until local agricultural authorities intervened, the paper said.
In parts of Shaanxi in the northwest, rain that began in the middle of last week is set to continue until the end of this week.
“The wet weather in the coming days is very likely to increase the blight and sprouting. There will be a considerable threat to production and quality,” Li Hualong, a senior engineer with the Shaanxi Meteorological Bureau, was quoted as saying by local news portal Cnwest.com.