Severe drought devastates harvest in northern China

World Today

The lingering drought in northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has been severely affecting harvests. Some farmers couldn’t adequately feed their livestock.

The city of Tongliao is a major grain production base in Inner Mongolia, yielding one-fourth of the region’s agricultural products. However, after a drought that hasn’t let up for over a month, the base’s output has taken a heavy hit. Many parts of the region are now experiencing the driest year ever recorded in meteorological records.

Most of the farmland in the area is not equipped with irrigation facilities. The drought has been devastating to local farmers. Some are still trying to save as much product as they can, turning the unqualified grain into animal feed.

Poor harvests raise the cost of the grass feed.  Severe drought means no grass to feed the herds. As a result, herdsmen have to sell some of their cows and sheep to make ends meet.

To help the herdsmen get through, the local government has provided subsidies to help mitigate their loss.

However, the Ministry of Agriculture said that the drought in northeast of China will have a negligible impact on the country’s overall harvest.

CCTV America’s Li Qiong reports.