Dry weather since late July has spread further into China's largest corn producing area in north-eastern Jilin province, hitting the crop at a critical period and threatening to hurt this year's harvest, agricultural officials said on Monday.
Drought conditions also affected parts of Liaoning, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi regions in the north, causing a shortage of drinking water for some 3.9 million people, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief reported on its website (www.mwr.gov.cn).
The office urged local authorities to do their best to secure water for drinking and to irrigate crops. Rainfall since late July in Jilin, which produces 13 percent of the country's corn harvest, is down 80 percent from normal levels, said one local agricultural official, adding that dry weather has affected about 60 percent of the corn producing area.
"The drought of more than 10 days came at the crop filling stage, which would definitely cause a lower production, and now the concern is how much output would fall," said Feng Lichen, president of Dalian Yigu Consulting Co Ltd, which runs an industry website (www.maize.com.cn). Despite the drought, the government holds a large amount of corn in reserves from last year's bumper harvest, and a lower harvest this year may not prompt China, the second-largest consumer after the United States, to import anytime soon. Since mid-July, Beijing has offered 2 million tonnes of corn every week to the domestic market at weekly auctions.
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