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Severe drought hits China
Drought conditions badly affects the nations wheat producing regions. CNN's John Vause explains.
With no rain here in Beijing, and across many central and northern provinces, officials say many parts of the country are now in the grips of the worst drought in five decades. Rainfall has been up to ninety percent below normal, leaving more than four million people without drinking water so to two million livestock. But as you say, the biggest concern is for this winter wheat harvest, in some parts, the crop is almost half, almost half of the crop products are now being threatened by this drought.
Frequent co-steps too have not helped the situation, we are talking about an area of 24 million acres of farmland, the hardest hit regions, could see their crop yields fall by 20% this year according to one expert. Add to that problem, 20 million migrant workers, who are now without a job, many have returned from the city to their family farms. They were hoping to work the land until the economy improved, but now that may not be an option, because there’s not enough water for irrigation. There is also concern about a blow to farm incomes which will be another hit to this economy which has already been struggling with the collapse in exports. The government has declared a Category One Emergency. There could be some relief coming over the weekend. Weather forecasters predict some rainfall in some of the hardest hit regions over the next few days. Andrew?
John, half the crop, half the wheat crop potentially under threat, what can the government do apart from pray for rain.
Well, this Category One Emergency gives an access to transportation facilities, like railways and also to airlines and that kind of things to move an aid around as needs, it also frees up a lot of money to help farmers in those regions. There’s also this strategic Grain Reserve which the government won’t tell us or won’t release figures on how much is being held there. But last year, for example, China had a bumper grain harvest more than 500 million tons, almost half of that was bought up by the government. They keep part of that in this Gain Reserve for these types of emergencies, but you have to keep in mind that China, since 2003, has been a net grain importer. So any hit to this winter wheat harvest will almost likely be felt around the world.
VOCABULARY
1. winter wheat 冬小麥
2. crop yields 作物產量 谷物收獲量
3. apart from 遠離, 除...之外
4. strategic reserve 戰略儲備
5. bumper n.緩沖器 緩沖
6. keep in mind prep.記住,不忘
7. importer n.輸入者, 進口商
