Extreme weather threatens food security

El Nino continues to "exert its power". Frequent extreme weather events in many places have begun to have an impact on food production and marketing.

The reporter learned that affected by drought or flood, several staple grains have been affected to varying degrees in various producing areas. In western Hunan and the south of central Hunan, a large number of rice and corn were flooded, and nearly 10,000 hectares of farmland were affected in one county alone. The situation of grain production in arid areas is also very serious, such as Yongsheng County, Yunnan Province, due to the lack of effective precipitation, the process of spring ploughing is slow, so far there are nearly 100000 mu of spring sowing has not yet been completed. It is understood that due to the continuous aggravation of the drought, there has been a sharp increase in the area that needs to be replanted and missed time holidays.

Among the many agricultural products, wheat is the most seriously injured. Due to the weather and diseases, the quality of wheat in the new season is much lower than that in previous years, which can not meet the quality standard of the national minimum purchase price of wheat.

Xiangzhou District, Xiangyang City, is the main wheat producing area in Hubei, with a wheat planting area of 1.496 million mu in 2015, with a total output of 1.32 billion jin. The reporter saw at the home of Zhang Hongtao, a major grain grower in this area, that 90,000 jin of wheat produced in 102 mu of wheat fields were stacked under a simple rain shelter. Due to serious dampness, the wheat has begun to become moldy and moldy, turning it over with a spade, suddenly dusty and moldy to the nostrils.

Zhang Hongtao said that his family finished harvesting wheat on May 23, but so far no one has come to buy it. In order to repay the agricultural expenses on credit, he had no choice but to sell more than 20,000 jin of wheat at a price of 1.07 yuan per catty. At present, more than 60,000 jin of wheat has not been sold.

The problems faced by Zhang Hongtao are common throughout Hubei Province. Zhu Jingzhou, a big grain grower in the three lakes management area of Jiangling County, said that in previous years, brokers snapped up at 1.12 yuan per jin, but now no one buys it at 1.05 yuan per jin. There is a backlog of wheat in farmers' homes, but the storage point is empty.

The reporter saw that although it was the peak period of grain sales, the collection and storage points were quite deserted in Duojiatou City. At the Fengqing Source Storage site in Xiangzhou District, the reporter squatted all morning and did not see farmers or brokers come to sell grain. Zhang Hongqin, head of the storage site, said that in the same period in previous years, the storage site had purchased more than 100000 tons of wheat, but now it is less than 40, 000 tons, and many warehouses are still empty.

Ding Guangzhi, deputy director of the Xiangzhou District Grain Bureau, said that wheat prices have been running at a low level this year, and the current purchase price of grain brokers to the village has fallen to 1.03 to 1.05 yuan per jin. Because the price is too low, a lot of wheat is hoarded in the hands of farmers. According to the survey, as of June 29, grain enterprises in the region had purchased only 35.21% of wheat in the same period last year, of which 11 million jin of wheat were purchased in the market, 5.86% of that in the same period last year.

In Henan, another major wheat producing area, the provincial grain bureau revealed that due to the decline in quality caused by continuous overcast and rainy weather, as of last week, the number of wheat purchased at the lowest purchase price had decreased by nearly 4 billion kg compared with the same period last year. Wheat purchased at market price has also decreased by more than 1.5 billion kg compared with the same period last year, and the average purchase price has also decreased compared with the same period last year.