China has urged local authorities to speed up the harvesting and drying of damaged wheat in a bid to save crops from heavy rain amid Beijing’s increased focus on food security.

Continuous rain and high humidity across northern China, home to the country’s wheat-production bases in Anhui, Hubei and parts of Shaanxi, have caused pre-harvest germination, also known as sprout damage. Wheat has also been infected by blight, which brings higher risks of toxins and limits end-use applications, such as baking.

Millions of tonnes of unharvested wheat have also been affected by unusually heavy rainfall in central China’s Henan province – which accounts for more than a quarter of China’s wheat output.

“Harvest as soon as possible,” the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said late on Tuesday, while also calling for 24-hour telephone hotlines to be set up.

China is the world’s largest consumer and producer of wheat and authorities have been stepping up efforts in recent years to ensure enough food to feed its 1.4 billion people, particularly in the face of global turmoil and uncertainties that affect imports, including the Ukraine war.

The ministry said state-owned grain reserves and local governments should work to “overcome all challenges” and gather sufficient crop-harvesting and drying machines, while ensuring enough power to operate the machinery, to reduce potential losses.

“Open areas in public squares or outside premises should be fully utilised to dry wheat to prevent them from rotting in reserves,” the ministry added.

The ministry also emphasised the importance of “seed security” to ensure rotten wheat seeds do not affect future crops.

“Seed security needs to be ensured. Seeds which are not of the required quality cannot go into the market as it would pose security risks to planting in autumn,” it added.

Ma Wenfeng, a senior analyst with Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy, estimated that at least 20 million metric tonnes (44.8 billion pounds) of wheat has been affected by the heavy rain.

He also said farmers face significant losses because damaged wheat will be refused by food-processing companies and will probably end up as animal feed.

Ma estimated that around 14.5 per cent of the national output last year has already been affected.

Beijing has imposed political obligations on local officials, with their performance evaluated in terms of quotas on farmland size, grain output and crop structure.

National wheat output rose by 0.6 per cent from a year earlier to 137.7 million metric tonnes in 2022, government data showed.

Imports of wheat, meanwhile, climbed by 1.9 per cent year on year to 9.96 million metric tonnes last year.

Source - https://www.scmp.com