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China Suffering Worst Drought Since 1951 - UPDATES

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Bianca
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« on: February 06, 2009, 10:35:18 pm »








                                        China Suffering Worst Drought Since 1951






Time.com
Fri Feb 6, 2009

Olympic glory aside, 2008 will be remembered in China as a year of massive natural disasters. Between the crippling ice storms that left millions stranded during the Chinese New Year holiday last January and February and the Sichuan earthquake in May that killed 88,000, catastrophes touched a wide swath of the country and caused nearly $200 billion in damage - more than four times the previous year.


This year isn't getting off to a much better start. On Thursday, the government announced a severe drought emergency across eight central provinces. The dry conditions have hit an important grain-growing region south and west of Beijing at a time when the country is struggling to keep unemployment in check. (See pictures of Olympic highs and lows in Beijing.)


More than 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of wheat, nearly half the country's total winter wheat cropland, are now suffering, the most widespread water shortage since 1951, according to China's Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief. Beijing has not recorded precipitation since for over four months, the state-run Xinhua news service reported. And across the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu, 4.3 million people and 2 million head of livestock are experiencing water shortages.


The government has budgeted nearly $60 million in relief aid for the drought, but that may not be enough to help the millions of unemployed migrant workers returning home to the region in coming months. An estimated 20 million of the country's 130 million migrant laborers have been thrown out of work due to the global economic crisis. A lack of buying overseas has led to factory closures and layoffs in China's coastal manufacturing regions, and many people are heading back to their homes in the interior. Most came from farming regions, and local governments had hoped that agriculture could absorb some of unemployed returnees. But with fewer crops to harvest, and herd reductions imminent due to water shortages, there will be little need for more hands.


"The drought will no doubt exacerbate rural unemployment, because arable land is what most migrant workers resort to when they lose their jobs in the cities, and now their last option is under what's probably the most severe threat in decades," says Zhang Xinghua, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Rural Development Institute. "This will also have an impact on social stability, though it's hard to gauge to what extent yet. But as the overall economy further slows, I think the situation is likely to get worse."


- With reporting by Jessie Jiang
« Last Edit: February 08, 2009, 06:59:14 am by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

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Bianca
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« Reply #1 on: February 08, 2009, 07:00:04 am »



 A farmer carries pails to transport water from
a partially dried-up pond at the outskirts of Yingtan









                                                            Rain eases China drought






BEIJING
(Reuters)
Feb.8, 2009

– Rain fell in drought-stricken north central China after the government brought in rain-making scientists, and officials have promised to divert two major rivers to help farmers, state media said on Sunday.

Over the weekend Premier Wen Jiabao visited drought-stricken areas, where the government has declared a state of emergency. He called the relief work "top priority," and a key part of efforts to revive the economy amid the global financial woes.

"It is of vital significance to the overall economy to boost steady growth of grain production and farmers' income" as China is in a key stage to cope with the global financial crisis," the official Xinhua agency quoted him saying.

The government has already taken a small step toward protecting rural cash flow, raising the minimum price paid for a tonne of wheat purchased by the state reserves system by 200 yuan a tonne, Xinhua said. It did not report the new floor price.

Wen told local governments to speed up water management projects, guarantee supplies of fertilizer and pesticide, and subsidize purchases of farm machinery for those in greatest need.

China has earmarked 86.7 billion yuan ($12.69 billion) for handouts to badly-hit farmers and another 400 million yuan for drought relief work by local authorities.

Experts say that Beijing's moves to fund last-minute irrigation could fend off a crisis, reviving crops that might otherwise have been left to die by farmers struggling with low prices and oversupply.






RAIN-MAKING



Weather officials have also been trying to improve the situation by boosting the amount of water on the ground, deploying rainmaking tools including cloud-seeding rockets across key wheat-growing areas.

The bread-basket states affected by the lack of water saw anything from 0.5 to 5 millimetres of rain after the bid to open the skies, Xinhua reported.

Areas still dry also saw an encouraging gathering of clouds.

To help tide over any shortfalls water from the country's longest river, the Yangtze, will be diverted north to meet growing demand as temperatures rise, the report quoted a Ministry of Water Resources official saying.

Water supply on the Yellow river will also be boosted, as officials open dams upriver from the worst-hit provinces. Some 5 billion cubic metres has already been released, Xinhua said.

Eight provinces, and around half of China's wheat growing areas, are at risk. So far 10.7 million hectares of crop have been affected along with 4.4 million people, the report said.

In March most of the area is expected to receive nearly normal rainfall, or just slightly less than usual, state media have quoted the director of the National Climate Center saying.

($1=6.834 Yuan)




(Reporting by
Emma Graham-Harrison;

Editing by
Mike Nesbit)
« Last Edit: February 08, 2009, 07:06:40 am by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
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