China has been experiencing both floods and heat strokes concurrently amid severe weather shocks.
According to The New York Times, certain areas have been hit by high heat while others have experienced torrential downpours that have an impact on the crops.
China Dual Weather Challenges
According to Chinese President Xi Jinping, ensuring that China can feed its large people is a national obligation.
Unexpected weather events, however, have impeded wheat harvests and jeopardized pig and fish aquaculture.
Recently, excessive heat in southern China’s Guangxi Province killed fish in rice paddies and hundreds of pigs at a farm in the eastern city of Nantong.
Pigs were suffering from heat stroke while being transported in a truck, so the city of Tianjin’s fire department was called to spray water on them.
Officials in Xinjiang’s northwest issued a warning that extreme heat and flooding could harm wheat harvests.
The rain fell later than expected and quite late in May in central China.
When wheat kernels went black in the rain and became unfit for human consumption, the government sent emergency teams to try to save as much of the harvest as they could.
The extraordinarily heavy rain brought to light the risks that climatic shocks pose to President Xi Jinping’s ambition for China to increase its food security.
Read more: Researchers Uncover ‘Zombie Forest’ Phenomenon Spreading to New Western US Regions
Concerns Mount Over Food Supply and Security
The New York Times reported that local officials said it was the biggest disruption to the wheat harvest in a decade.
Although not experiencing food price inflation at the same rates as other industrialized countries, officials are concerned about how vulnerable the country’s food supply is to outside shocks.
When prices for fruit, vegetables, and pig all surged significantly last summer, the Chinese government released pork from its strategic stocks to stabilize prices, according to the New York Times.
The Chinese government then reiterated its call for food security to be given first priority.
Food shortages last year became a key source of unrest in China as the authorities imposed a strict lockdown on Shanghai, a city of 25 million people, to stem the coronavirus’s spread.
Social media videos depicted locals scavenging for food in grocery aisles and on the streets.
Read more: Tesla Takes the Lead: Securing Top Four Spots as Most American-Made Cars
