BEIJING: China’s agriculture ministry is urging local authorities to speed up the harvesting and drying of damaged grain after heavy rain flooded fields of ripe wheat in the country’s most important growing region.
Authorities should send emergency teams to drain water from fields, speed up access by harvesters and mobilise drying machinery to save as much of the crop as possible, said the ministry late on Tuesday (May 30).
Giving further advice to these authorities, the ministry said: “Make full use of various places such as town squares or playgrounds, the front and back of houses to dry and harvest wheat to prevent sprouting and mould.”
China, the world’s top wheat grower, had expected a bumper crop this year. But heavy rain across the southern half of central Henan province last week is raising concerns.
Henan produced 28 per cent of China’s crop of 137 million tonnes in 2021.
Darin Friedrichs, co-founder of Shanghai-based Sitonia Consulting said it was too early to say how much output would be affected, but “the harvest is definitely going to be impacted”.
“The harvest was just ramping up and some areas have seen 400 per cent precipitation anomalies over the past 10 days,” he added.
Some wheat in southern Henan has sprouted after the rain, the government-backed Henan Daily said on Wednesday, making it unfit for consumption.