The steady downpour in China's northeastern wheat and grain heartland has led to intense flooding, the likes of which have taken the lives of 14 local people and has sparked serious fears about imminent food insecurity due to the floods swamping farmlands.
For the past weeks, the residual impacts of Typhoon Doksuri have been hammering northern China, moving over a million people from their homes and causing fatalities in the suburbs of Beijing and in the extended areas of Hebei province. As the storm traveled further north, more tragedies unfolded, with another 14 lives lost on Sunday in the province of Jilin's Shulan city. Amongst those lost were three local officials, one of whom was the city's Deputy Mayor.
In Shulan alone, over 18,000 residents have been forced to flee, as disclosed by China's state-sanctioned news agency.
Further north, Heilongjiang faces similar challenges, with the rivers that water its fertile lands overflowing resulting in submerged rice fields, ruined vegetable greenhouses, and factory damage. With 25 rivers breaching warning levels, the likelihood of more rivers bursting their banks is high. As a response, China's Ministry of Water Resources has elevated the flooding emergency status to a Level 3 for both Jilin and Heilongjiang.
In Harbin, Heilongjiang’s hub, more than 162,000 people have been rescued and over 90,000 hectares of crops devastated, as reported by People’s Daily.
Reports from China’s breadbasket depict entire villages under water and farmlands lost in Wuchang – a key rice-producing city. The inundation of these farmlands is causing unease over potential food supply disruptions, given that weather events linked to climate change are becoming an increased threat to China’s agricultural health.
Producing more than a fifth of China's grain yield, Jilin and Liaoning together with Heilongjiang, are known for their fertile terrain. Main crops from these regions include soybeans, corn, and rice. This dire predicament follows hot on the heels of excessive rainfall in late May in Henan province which caused a significant 0.9 percent drop in China's summer wheat yield this year – the first decrease in seven years, as revealed by the National Bureau of Statistics.
These continuous hits to China's agriculture are likely to affect food prices, which have remained relatively stable so far, predominantly due to rising deflationary risks within the Chinese economy.
Last week China discontinued anti-dumping tariffs on Australian barley imports, a move implemented in 2020 amid a peak in diplomatic tensions between the two nations. Following its worst heat wave and drought in decades in the summer of 2022, which led to widespread power shortages and disruption to food and industrial supply chains, China has ramped up its attention on food security.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated earlier this year that agriculture is the core of national security, remarking, “Once something’s wrong with agriculture, our bowls will be held in someone else’s hands and we’ll have to depend on others for food. How can we achieve modernization in that case?” Reflecting on their motto, it seems food security remains a major challenge for China's leaders moving forward.
