China loses millions of tonnes of wheat right before harvest, with global price implications

On a scale rarely seen, prolonged rainfall has slammed China’s wheat-production base, infecting crops with blight and causing pre-harvest sprouting

The impact will reduce the amount of wheat available in food production at a time when food security is of paramount concern

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Blight-stricken wheat crops from recent rains have sent provincial-level authorities in China scrambling to mitigate the damage. Photo: Weibo

Published: 9:30pm, 30 May 2023Updated: 5:12pm, 2 Jun 2023

Continuous rain and high humidity across China’s wheat-production base have left large swathes of the crop blighted or affected by sprout damage, threatening crop yields in the world’s largest producer and consumer of wheat.

Millions of tonnes of unharvested wheat have been affected by unusually heavy rainfall in central China’s Henan province – which accounts for more than a quarter of China’s wheat output – and in neighbouring areas, according to an estimate by an agricultural analyst.

The damage from the pre-harvest deluge, which started on Thursday and stretched into this week, prompted Henan authorities to set up a 200-million-yuan (US$28.3 million) emergency fund on Tuesday to help farmers.

The response came as Beijing has put unprecedented emphasis on ensuring adequate food production, and it recently warned provincial governors and party secretaries that they must “shoulder the responsibility of food security”.

Such a phenomenon normally occurs once every three or four years, but the scale of the fields affected this year is rare

Ma Wenfeng, Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy

Farmers in the province, as well as other wheat-growing regions such as Anhui, Hubei and parts of Shaanxi, have seen wheat kernels suffer from 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.

Images of the affected crops have been widely circulated online and in local media coverage, with farmers lamenting their diminished yields and financial losses.

Chinese authorities have been stepping up efforts in recent years to ensure the country has 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.