China drought causes major crop failure
Pastor Dale Morgan
China drought causes major crop failure*
BEIJING, Aug 24 (AFP) Aug 24, 2006
The worst drought in southwest China in half a century has severely
impacted local farms, causing a combined loss of five million tonnes of
grain, state media said Thursday.
The loss, roughly one percent of the national grain output for the
entire year, is the result of drought hitting 2.1 million hectares (5.2
million acres) of agricultural land across Sichuan province, the China
Daily said.
A month-long heat wave has caused a dry spell in 112 of Sichuan's 181
counties, threatening the supply of drinking water for nearly 10 million
people, according to the paper.
To make up for some of the shortfall of the summer, local authorities
have ordered farmers to boost planting of late-autumn crops such as
sweet potatoes, yams and beans by about 15 percent.
Food security for China's 1.3 billion people is a major source of
concern for the government, even though the country managed to boost its
grain production by 3.1 percent to 484 million tonnes in 2005.
Production last year was 14.55 million tonnes more than in 2004, the
first year that grain production began to increase after five years of
falling yields.