China’s food security, spring harvest threatened by excessive zero-Covid measures at local levels
- Some local authorities across China are being taken to task in public forums, including state media, for improperly shutting down roads and banning farmers from fields
- Safeguarding agricultural production in world’s most populous nation is of paramount importance, but some fields are at risk of being abandoned
A growing chorus of voices emanating from Chinese ministries and state media are calling for an end to excessive coronavirus-control measures that pose a threat to the spring harvest, and by extension the nation’s food security.
With agricultural production in various parts of China facing disruptions, there could be an adverse effect on the long-term supply, warned a front-page commentary in the official Economic Daily on Monday.
The piece pinned blame on the “one-size-fits-all” approach to tackling the virus, and on the additional heavy-handed restrictions imposed by some local authorities.
“While preventing and controlling outbreaks, it is very important and urgent to effectively safeguard agricultural production,” it said.
Farming waits for no one … one late step will delay the whole process. Have some officials forgotten this?
And in a commentary published on Sunday, Xiake Dao, a social media channel affiliated with the overseas edition of party mouthpiece People’s Daily, also took aim at local officials in some regions without coronavirus clusters. It criticised their decisions to randomly block roads, set checkpoints, and not allow farmers to access their fields.
Failure to correct these practices in time could have “unimaginable” consequences, the Xiake Dao piece warned.
“Farming waits for no one … one late step will delay the whole process,” it said. “Have some officials forgotten this?”
It also questioned who would be held accountable if farmers suffer losses because they are not allowed to tend to their fields properly.
Chinese farmers leave fields fallow as Jilin lockdown threatens corn supply
And the latest comments in state media come on the heels of new guidelines that were jointly issued on Friday by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the National Health Commission, which called for local authorities to find a balance between protecting the spring harvest and controlling the coronavirus’ spread.
For regions with no outbreaks, the document said the central government is looking to stabilise agricultural production with bans on unauthorised checkpoints; on cutting off roads and locking down villages randomly; and on keeping farmers from tending to their fields.
Additionally, it called for local officials to be held accountable if they are found to have “simplified” their Covid-control policies, if their actions delay the local harvest, or if arable land is abandoned and goes unused.
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“The document aims to correct improper practices and short-sightedness in some localities,” said Li Guoxiang, a fellow at the rural development institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
“Time can no longer be wasted,” he added, pointing to the risks of delayed sowing, including reduced crop yields.
However, he struck an optimistic tone in saying the impact on grain output for the full year could be limited if policies outlined in the joint document are implemented and enforced quickly, as this would help offset earlier shocks.
‘Rigid, crude’ lockdowns only choice for China’s poor regions under zero-Covid
But the situation on the ground sometimes paints a different picture.
Videos have gone viral online showing local authorities yelling at, or even forcibly stopping, farmers from working in their fields, accusing them of violating coronavirus restrictions.
China has set a grain-output target of more than 650 million tonnes for 2022.
“The Chinese government’s strict Covid-19 mobility restrictions may cause disruptions to spring-planted grain production and increase rice and corn imports, though the country’s abundant grain reserves will keep national food security largely intact,” said a note by Fitch Ratings on April 14.
“Domestic grain prices, however, will rise in 2022 amid tighter supply and demand, and higher global agricultural commodity prices, squeezing hog breeders’ margins.”
