Drought threatens China's wheat crop

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Drought threatens China's wheat crop; Shortages could create more pressure on already rising global food prices

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization issued an alert Tuesday that a severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world's largest wheat producer, and even resulting in shortages of drinking water for people and livestock.

The state-run news media in China warned Monday that the country's major agricultural regions were facing their worst drought in 60 years and said Tuesday that Shandong Province, a cornerstone of Chinese grain production, was bracing for its worst drought in 200 years unless substantial precipitation came by the end of this month.

World wheat prices are already surging and have been widely cited as one reason for protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. China has been essentially self-sufficient in grain for decades for national security reasons, and any move by China to import large quantities of food in response to the drought could drive international prices even higher, creating serious problems for less affluent countries that rely on imported food.

''China's grain situation is critical to the rest of the world - if they are forced to go out on the market to procure adequate supplies for their population, it could send huge shock waves through the world's grain markets,'' said Robert S. Zeigler, the director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Philippines.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said that 5.16 million hectares, or 12.75 million acres, of China's 14 million hectares of wheat fields had been affected by the drought, and that 2.57 million people and 2.79 million head of livestock faced shortages of drinking water.

''Minimal rainfall or snow this winter has crippled China's major agricultural regions, leaving many of them parched,'' reported Xinhua, the state-run news agency. ''Crop production has fallen sharply, as the worst drought in six decades shows no sign of letting up.''

Relatively few days of subzero temperatures and government irrigation projects have somewhat tempered the effects of the drought so far, the F.A.O. said in its ''special alert,'' but it went on to caution that extreme cold, with temperatures of minus 18 degrees Celsius (zero Fahrenheit), could have ''devastating'' effects. Kisan Gunjal, the F.A.O. food emergency officer in Rome for Asia alerts, said by telephone that if rain came soon and temperatures warmed up, then the wheat crop could still be saved and a bumper crop might even be possible.

Chinese meteorological agencies are warning of frost for each of the next nine nights in the heart of Shandong Province, with temperatures falling as low as minus 6 degrees Celsius (21 Fahrenheit), with very little chance of precipitation in the next 10 days except for the possibility of a little light rain or a dusting of snow on Wednesday or Thursday.

The heat wave in Russia last summer, combined with floods in Australia in recent months, have drawn worldwide attention to the international wheat market because both countries have historically been big exporters. Soaring wheat prices have been a particular trigger for food-related protests this year, in contrast to three years ago, when rice led food price increases and caused food riots from Haiti to Senegal. Read more at www6.lexisnexis.com

 

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