Heavy Rain Causes Disasters in the South, but Farmers Manage Seeding and Harvesting Without Missing the Farming Season

The "double rush" is in full swing in the South, with frequent heavy rainfall. But under the unified deployment of local Party committees, governments and agricultural departments at all levels, seeding and harvesting proceed without missing the farming season.

Since May, heavy rainfall has occurred frequently in the South. Cumulative precipitation in southern Hunan, eastern Jiangxi, northeastern Guangxi, most of Guangdong and western Fujian reached 400—700 mm, and flooding disasters occurred in some areas of 12 southern provinces (regions and municipalities).

As southern wheat and rapeseed are in their maturity and harvest period, all provinces actively organized officials and agricultural technicians to go to the front lines, investigate and understand the disaster situation, help farmers promptly drain water and reduce waterlogging, and seize the gaps between rains to harvest at full speed.

Measures are set according to the timing. The Ministry of Agriculture issued urgent notices twice to deploy defenses against heavy rainfall, requiring all localities to effectively carry out flood control and production self-rescue. At the same time, it dispatched 3 work supervision teams and expert guidance teams to 5 provinces including Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guizhou to supervise and guide disaster relief and agricultural production recovery.

Measures are established according to the situation. All provinces strengthened disaster monitoring and early warning, responded scientifically, firmly implemented measures, and quickly launched disaster relief and production self-rescue to effectively reduce the impact and losses of disasters. Guangdong and Jiangxi held early consultations and assessments, prepositioned rescue forces, and ensured timely disaster relief. Hubei Province launched its flood control and drought relief emergency plan in April and entered a state of actual flood control operations.

Production recovery was timely. Through measures such as switching early rice to middle rice, supplementary seedling cultivation or seedling adjustment, all localities organized farmers to rush-plant seedlings and rush to fill gaps. For damaged vegetable greenhouses, methods such as changing crops and replanting late-maturing varieties were adopted to reduce economic losses. Hunan promptly allocated 5 million yuan in provincial disaster relief emergency funds and reserved 10 million kg of quality disaster relief seeds such as rice and corn, promptly organizing farmers to change crops and replant.

Guidance and services were in place. All localities actively organized agricultural departments, township officials and agricultural technicians to cover villages and households and carry out technical guidance for production self-rescue. Fujian organized experts and agricultural technicians to cover counties, townships and village groups, staying close to the front lines of production to grasp self-rescue.