China: Wheat farmers overcome summer rains, saving this year’s harvest

It’s not easy to see a bumper summer harvest after witnessing continuously overcast days and rainy weather hit major grain-growing areas from late May to present day, but we have seen a bumper harvest thanks to the rush-harvesting by government departments and farmers, said a senior official from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

It was predicted that the nation would embrace a summer harvest before the continuous overcast and rainy weather hit provinces such as Henan and Shaanxi in central and northwest China, allowing for an increased planting area of wheat, good wheat growth and well-controlled pests and plant diseases, said Pan Wenbo, director of the ministry’s planting management department, at a news conference in Beijing on Friday.

He said that it took painstaking efforts to achieve this year’s summer harvest.

“In fact, experiencing overcast and rainy weather over wheat season is a global problem, during which time period the reaping machine can’t work on a muddy ground, but ripe wheat still begins to sprout. The situation also happens in countries and regions including Australia, Canada and the United States, and could cut production by 10 or 20 percent,” he said.

He said that it took joint efforts to keep the influence to a minimum level. It’s calculated that the continuous overcast and rainy whether (from May 25) has affected wheat planting areas of 1.86 million hectares, roughly eight percent of nation’s total planting areas of wheat, and 95 percent of the affecting areas were in Henan province.

“The central government granted 546 million yuan ($76 million) to heavily-stricken areas such as Henan and Shaanxi and coordinated to set up over 6,000 emergency teams of 600,000 combine harvesters to rush harvesting and drying wheat around the clock. We reached a daily harvesting record of 1,600,000 hectares during the rush-harvesting period. The major wheat-growing counties finished harvesting in three to five days, while it usually takes a week to finish the work.

“The National Bureau of Statistics said that Henan saw a wheat production cut of 2,630 million kg and Shaanxi 120 million kg. Other wheat production provinces such as Shandong and Anhui were not severely affected by the continuous rainy weather and saw an increase of summer grain crops,” he added.

According to him, the nation saw a slight decrease of summer grain crops by 0.9 percent, which is about 1,275 million kg.

“The wheat is, so far, in ample stock and the slight production cut won’t hit the grain market. The price of wheat will remain stable,” he added.

Tags: Shaanxi, summer harvest, rainy weather, China, bumper harvest, Production, wheat, Henan