June 9, 2009

Frequent rain since last week has relieved drought condition in north China's Heilongjiang Province, the country's largest grain production base.

 

Last month, the province was hit by the worst drought in 58 years as it had not received any substantial rainfall from April 22 to late May.

 

Following last week's precipitation, the drought affected less than 3.7 million hectares of crops, compared with six million hectares in late May, local flood control and drought relief authorities said Monday (June 8).

 

Local weather forecasters said Heilongjiang will see another round of rain from Tuesday to Thursday. In order to further ease the severe drought, local authorities will use rockets and artillery to seed clouds to produce more rain.

 

Meanwhile, the local government has allocated RMB430 million (US$62.9 million) for drought relief efforts. For instance, farmers were taught to use drip irrigation rather than flood irrigation. They also dug much deeper wells as the drought resulted in lower levels of underground water.

 

Many seedling crops withered in the arid conditions last month and some crop seeds did not even sprout at all. Farmers in Heilongjiang had replanted 830,000 hectares of crops as of June 3, according to the provincial agricultural commission.

 

Heavy wind also levelled many field furrows and buried seedling crops.

 

The severe drought also highlighted the lack of irrigation infrastructure in the outlying rural regions as many farmers had to rely on river water for irrigation, which had dried up under the harsh weather.

 

Xiao Zhimin, deputy president of Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, said the drought has eased and many farmers have replanted late crops to reduce losses. He added that Heilongjiang's grain output would definitely decline this year but he could not offer an exact prediction.

 

Heilongjiang is China's major production region of soy, corn and rice. The province's soy output accounts for 45 percent of the country's total.

 

The drought became a stumbling block to the province as it aimed to increase grain output to 50 million tonnes in 2012 from last year's 42 million tonnes. It sells more than half of the grain on the market.

 

Official data have showed that China's grain output rose 5.4 percent year-on-year to a record 528.5 million tonnes in 2008.