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

Reading Time:2 minutes

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.