Chinese farmers struggle with worst drought in 60 years

Hundreds of persimmon trees that should be loaded with yellow fruit lie wilted in Gan Bingdong’s greenhouse in southwestern China, adding to mounting farm losses in a scorching summer that is the country’s driest in six decades.

Gan’s farm south of the industrial metropolis of Chongqing lost half its vegetable crop in heat as high as 106 degrees and a drought that has shrunk the giant Yangtze River and wilted crops across central China.

Gan’s surviving eggplants are no bigger than strawberries. A reservoir beside his farm has run dry, forcing him to pump groundwater.

“This year’s high temperatures are very annoying,” Gan said.

Drought conditions across a swath of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have “significantly increased,” the national weather agency said Saturday.

The forecast called for high temperatures and no rain for at least three more days from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces northwest of Shanghai, through Chongqing and Sichuan provinces to the east of Tibet.

The biggest impact is in Sichuan, where factories have been shut down and offices and shopping malls told to turn off air-conditioning after reservoirs to generate hydropower fell to half their normal levels.

The province of 94 million people gets 80% of its electricity from hydropower dams.

Factories that make processor chips for smartphones, auto components, solar panels and other industrial goods were shut down for at least six days through Saturday. 




Gan Bingdong uses a hose to water plants near a dying chili pepper plant at his farm in Longquan village in southwestern China's Chongqing Municipality, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2022. Drought conditions across a swathe of China from the densely populated east across central farming provinces into eastern Tibet have "significantly increased," the national weather agency said Saturday. The forecast called for no rain and high temperatures for at least three more days from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces northwest of Shanghai, through Chongqing and Sichuan in the southwest to the eastern part of Tibet. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)