Bitter harvest for China’s farmers as coronavirus keeps country in lockdown
- Crops are rotting in fields as workers are forced to stay at home and transport links are cut
- Poultry breeders and vegetable growers are among the hardest hit, authorities say
Jiang Junsheng has already pulped a tonne of garlic, turning the unwanted crop into fertiliser, but he still has to work out how to dispose of nearly five tonnes of sweet potatoes, cabbages and other vegetables at his organic farm in central China.
“In normal years, I would have sold 40,000 yuan (US$5,720) worth of vegetables in the three weeks after the Lunar New Year holiday. This year, it’s nearly zero,” the 39-year-old farmer said from his fields near Ruzhou in Henan province.
Jiang uses an organic solution from waste vegetables to grow his crops and relies heavily on delivery services to get his products to market in distant, first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai where buyers will pay a premium. But disease control measures have made this impossible.
“In the past few weeks, links between most cities have been cut. People and vehicles can’t even get between villages here,” he said.
Some of the roads have reopened and more delivery companies resumed business since this week, but it’s far from a full recovery, he said.
