The worst drought in China in 60 years is threatening its wheat crop and leading many to worry about the potential effects on already high global food prices.
According to The New York Times: “China has been essentially self-sufficient in grain for decades, for national security reasons. Any move by China to import large quantities of food in response to the drought could drive international prices even higher than the record levels recently reached.
China has reacted to the emergency by pledging to spend $1 billion to “boost emergency water supply and irrigation resources,” according to Bloomberg News. The Chinese government even shot rockets filled with the chemical silver iodide into the air to help spark the light snow and rain that fell on the north-central areas of China’s wheat belt two weeks ago.
Nevertheless, agricultural experts warn that it is still too early to assess the damage to the wheat harvest. Bloomberg reports, “most crops in the wheat region are irrigated and only about 5 percent of annual precipitation normally occurs from December to February, said Mike Tannura, a meteorologist at T-Storm Weather in Chicago. ‘Even though it’s been dry relative to average, 95 percent of precipitation occurs from March through November,’ Tannura said. ‘It’s a concern, no question about it, but one big rain in March and all of a sudden they’re back above average.’”
Looking long term, China is facing even deeper problems – from its water supplies. “Water supplies have been drying up in Northern China for decades, the result of pervasive overuse and waste. Aquifers have been so depleted that in some farming regions, wells probe a half-mile down before striking water.”
Also at issue is increasing desertification, often caused by overgrazing and other unsuitable farming techniques, according to the BBC. A Chinese official recently said that “it will take 300 years to turn back China’s advancing deserts at the current rate of progress.” Desertification is mostly taking place on the fringes of the Gobi desert.
In reaction to the drought in China, the Food and Agricultural Organization put out a “special alert,” – their first one this year. They only put out one in 2010, for Niger and the Sahel region of Africa.
Bloomberg also points out that “the past month’s protests in North Africa and the Middle East were partly linked to food costs.”
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