In the north Chinese province of Jiangxi, in the Yangtze River basin, a 67-year-old farmer walks through his paddy fields. After 49 consecutive days without rain but in the middle of the rainy season, the ground turned rock hard. “This year’s harvest is not good… The ears are empty and the rice grains don’t form because of the lack of rain, he breathes. Look, the land is very dry, it’s cracked all over.”
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The same observation on the neighboring property: “It hasn’t rained at all for two and a half months. The rice is not growing,” one tweeted. “Compared to a normal year, rice production will be reduced by two-thirds, said another farmer, Wang Xigong. At this point in the summer, it’s too late to recoup the losses. There is no cure.”
Every year, Chinese farmers learn more about the effects of global warming. For Xu Yinlong, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Agricultural Sciences, an awareness is slowly building up: “In the Yangtze River region, farmers are used to a lot of rain. Work against the drought must be intensified in the future with the construction of new water installations, new channels to transport water to the fields and the construction of pumping stations to improve drip irrigation.”
“Chinese agriculture is facing an unprecedented transformation. Drought resilience is still insufficient.”
Xu Yinlong, researcher at the Beijing Academy of Agricultural Sciences
at franceinfo
Rice fields, cotton fields, lotus fields… The water reserves are the lowest everywhere. The farmers try to get along with little means. “This year we bought a small pump that irrigates our fields, but it’s not enough to reach the higher land,” explains farmer Huang Fangming. The harvest has already died of thirst. The rice fields are dead.”
The authorities are concerned with one question: In view of climate change, will China be able to continue to feed its 1.4 billion inhabitants? This is a real concern for researcher Xu Yinlong. “China’s food security is an issue that is constantly monitored, because even in normal times, agricultural resources are not enough to feed all residents,” explains the expert. With climate change, it becomes a problem that becomes even more pressing. We must find new areas, especially in the north and west of the country. These regions were previously too cold to be built on. But thanks to the warming, these areas will be buildable,” the expert estimates.
A Chinese farmer is concerned about the September 2022 drought. (SEBASTIEN BERRIOT / RADIO FRANCE)
The situation is putting the Chinese government under pressure. In addition to food damage, the risk is also a social risk in rural China, where global warming is eroding farmers’ incomes. “My husband is disabled. If we don’t till the fields, we won’t have any other way of earning a living,” a farmer worries.
“How can I make a living? How can I find another job at my age? In recent years I have been able to grow rice and cotton, sell them and feed myself.
A Chinese farmer
at franceinfo
With the level of the Yangtze River plummeting again this summer at unprecedented levels, Jiangxi farmers are very pessimistic about the coming years. The river feeds all the plants in the basin. “If this continues, many rice fields will be abandoned, one man complains. How is it possible that we don’t worry?”
In China, agriculture is at risk in the face of global warming: report by Sébastien Berriot
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