China faces diluted early-season rice harvest as floods drench crops in farming hubs

Rainfall in China’s hubs for early-season rice threatens to reduce the year’s grain output, presenting a challenge the country’s efforts to maintain food security

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Recent floods in China are threatening the country’s harvest of early-season rice, a dietary staple and a major component of Beijing’s campaign to ensure food security. Photo: Weibo

Published: 9:00pm, 3 Jul 2024

China is set to see a drop in its early-season rice harvest after recent bouts of extreme rainfall in major production areas, putting pressure on annual output at a time when Beijing is fighting to strengthen its food security.

The crop – to be gathered later this month and estimated to account for 13 per cent of China’s total rice production – is sprouting prematurely in the southern and eastern areas of the country after heavy rains that have persisted since mid-June, according to local farmers and agriculture analysts.

A highly likely decrease in output underscores the growing challenge presented by climate change as China endeavours to ensure food self-sufficiency, an issue of strategic significance for the country’s 1.4 billion people as geopolitical uncertainties accumulate.

“It’s unusual to see so much rain in this season, and rice crops located in low-lying areas have been flooded, so a reduction in output this year is almost certain,” said Ding Yong, a farmer from Xiangyin county in Hunan province – one of the four hub areas where China’s “early rice” is grown.

Streets and farmland were also flooded in Pingjiang, a county near Xiangyin, as the county recorded its highest water levels since 1954 after torrential rains battered the area consistently since June 18, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

In Jiangxi – another producing hub – continuous high temperatures, humidity and strong rainfalls have led to premature germination in some of the rice, a harmful condition that can occur after the grain has ripened and before it can be harvested, according to a research note from agricultural portal Cngrain on Tuesday.