Severe drought in Yunnan, Guangxi, Sichuan and Guizhou cuts fruit and vegetable output, many agricultural enterprises face production emergencies

Mangoes are a fruit that everyone likes to eat, but if you want to eat mangoes again this year, you may have to pay a bit more, because due to the impact of persistent drought weather, in Guangxi, the main mango-producing area, a 50% reduction in local mango output has become a fact. If the drought is not alleviated, output will drop even further. A reporter from CCTV Finance Channel rushed to the drought-stricken area in Guangxi to investigate and find out the details.

Focus on the Southwest Drought

Guangxi: Mango output expected to drop 50%

⟦NL> Guangxi's mango output accounts for about one quarter of the national total. Last year it produced 170,000 tons of mangoes. However, in Tiandong County, Baise, Guangxi, known as the hometown of mangoes, we found that although a single cluster on a mango tree should be able to bear seven or eight or even a dozen fruits, due to the impact of drought weather, only one or two fruits have now set. Huang Yangguang, a mango grower in Tiandong County, is a major mango grower here, with a 150-mu mango orchard. Faced with the drought weather and the sharply reduced fruit set, he is at a loss what to do.

In addition, what distresses him even more is that some mango varieties that are not drought-resistant may have no harvest at all. If calculated according to last year's purchase price of 1.5 yuan per jin, the mango output on a single tree alone would cost Old Huang a loss of more than 200 yuan. For one mu of land, the loss is 8,000 yuan. The total mango planting area in Tiandong County is 120,000 mu, and according to the local responsible person, the mango output of the entire Tiandong County will decline by more than half.
 

Focus on the Southwest Drought

Output at Guangxi's “South Vegetables Transported North” base drops by 20%

Guangxi is a nationally famous “South Vegetables Transported North” base. The annual output value of its vegetable industry exceeds 20 billion yuan, making it a pillar industry second only to grain and sugar. How will the persistent drought affect the “South Vegetables Transported North” market and local vegetable supply? Let us continue to watch the reporter's investigation.

Tianyang County and Tiandong County in Baise City, Guangxi, are fruit and vegetable production bases in southern China and also one of the important bases for transporting southern vegetables north. In the winter of 2009, the tomato planting area already exceeded 500,000 mu, but due to the impact of the drought, tomato output here generally dropped by about 20%.

The reduction in tomato output directly led to price increases. At Guangxi's largest agricultural products (14.40,0.19,1.34%) wholesale market, the Nanning Wuliting Agricultural Products Wholesale Market, tomato prices here generally rose. In addition to tomatoes, rice prices here also rose slightly. Guangxi agricultural and sideline product price monitoring information shows that since March, due to the impact of drought weather, vegetable supply and prices in Baise, Nanning, Yulin, Hechi, Chongzuo, Qinzhou and other places have fluctuated to varying degrees. In Baise, where the drought is severe, long beans and loofah that previously sold for only 3 to 4 yuan per kilogram now rise to 6 to 8 yuan; at Nanning Langdong Vegetable Market, the prices of lettuce, cucumber, potatoes and other vegetables all rose by 50%; in Yulin, the price of Chinese cabbage from Yunnan rose from about 2 yuan per kilogram to 3.4 yuan, an increase of 70%, and green cucumber and eggplant also rose by 50%. However, the overall supply of agricultural and sideline products in various parts of Guangxi is relatively sufficient and prices are stable. Prices are also unlikely to fluctuate sharply in the near future.

Focus on the Southwest Drought

Shortage of pumping equipment in Guangxi's mango-producing areas

Now the whole country is paying attention to the drought-stricken areas, so what supplies are most needed there at this moment? At the Baise Agricultural Science and Technology Park in Guangxi, our reporter found that when the drought-stricken areas are striving to protect mango growth, the most prominent contradiction is the acute shortage of corresponding drought-resistant facilities. Let us find out the details.

Entering the Baise National Agricultural Science and Technology Park, we found that the number of fruits on the branches of mango trees here is noticeably greater than elsewhere. According to the person in charge, one mango tree here can yield 100 jin. Although that is also half less than in previous years, it is 50 jin more than in other parks. This is because they sprayed fruit-preserving agents on the mango trees.

In addition, they dug two small pits on both sides of the roots of each mango tree, preparing to apply fertilizer. Although the various drought-resistant measures taken by this park reduced losses, during the interview the person in charge told us that drought-resistant equipment is still very lacking. This park currently has 100 small pumping units and is still in urgent need of 50 more. In addition, 5,000 m of water pipes have already been laid here, but another 5,000 m are still lacking.
 

Focus on the Southwest Drought

Longli, Guizhou: Worsening drought makes pharmaceutical companies anxious

The worsening drought has also brought a great impact on pharmaceutical enterprises in the southwest region. Longli County, Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou, is known as Guizhou's city of Miao medicine, with 14 pharmaceutical enterprises, whose annual output value accounts for 12% of the total output value of Guizhou Province's pharmaceutical industry. Under the impact of this historically rare severe drought, how are the pharmaceutical enterprises there doing now? Let us watch the reporter's investigation.

Entering the factory area of Guizhou Shenqi Pharmaceutical, everything appears empty and deserted, and it is hard to see more than a few workers. If there is anything seen most often, it is probably these “iron generals” hanging on every gate and the seals on them. The seal date is February 10, 2010. In this capsule production workshop, the staff told the reporter that since after the Spring Festival, due to the impact of water shortage, this workshop began full-line shutdown. During this period production was resumed once, but still because of water shortage, it had to be shut down again, and it has remained so until now.

Du Yuanxin, workshop director of Guizhou Shenqi Pharmaceutical Factory: “Now 70% to 80% of our factory's (workshops) have stopped production. Many (pharmaceutical) enterprises (around here) have mostly stopped production.”

The workshop director told the reporter that the Shenqi Pharmaceutical Longli factory area mainly produces traditional Chinese medicine preparation products, with a total of five production lines. Since the beginning of this year, four production lines have successively had to be shut down because of excessive water consumption. When they were producing normally, they needed about 1,000 tons of water per day, but now they can only secure about 100 tons of water themselves, with the Longli County government departments helping to solve some more. It is understood that since September last year, in order to solve the water difficulties of industrial enterprises, especially pharmaceutical enterprises, the Longli County government, in addition to ensuring domestic water for enterprise employees, has also separately arranged voluntary water-hauling trucks to supply at least 100 tons of water to enterprises four times a day, which has kept quite a few enterprises from falling into the predicament of shutdown and closure. However, even so, in the face of the current persistent drought, the future production of enterprises is still worrying.

Du Yuanxin, workshop director of Guizhou Shenqi Pharmaceutical Factory: “What we see now is another small production line in the syrup workshop. Now, through everyone's efforts, since yesterday we have resumed production, but the output of this line is less than one half of the output of my line.”

According to the latest statistics from the Longli County government, due to the impact of water shortage, the six main pharmaceutical enterprises in Longli County have successively entered a state of shutdown or partial shutdown. The output value in January and February this year fell by 44% year on year. In order to further guarantee water supply to enterprises, the Longli County government is arranging to transfer in and purchase fire trucks. At present, it has been confirmed that six fire trucks will soon be in place.
 

Finance Link

Drought heavily hits urea market; southwest fertilizer sector “fights with its back to the wall”

The impact of the severe drought actually goes far beyond what we have seen. Next, let us open our broadcast's Finance Link. The changes that have occurred in some industries under the impact of the drought are also worth everyone's attention. Today's Finance Link focuses on fertilizer production enterprises in the southwest region. Today, Guizhou's urea producer and listed company Chitianhua disclosed that due to the impact of the severe drought, it will adjust its sales strategy, product sales prices and product layout in a timely manner. Let us look at the specific content linked.

Chitianhua is the largest fertilizer production enterprise in Guizhou Province. Its fertilizer output accounts for about 50% of the total fertilizer output of the entire Guizhou Province, and 70% of total urea. Chitianhua announced that the company's product sales in the first quarter of this year are not much different from normal conditions in previous years. However, the drought has still had a certain impact on the company's product sales. The southwest is a province-concentrated area for urea production in China. There are 6 urea production enterprises in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Sichuan area, including Lutianhua, Jianfeng Chemical, Sichuan Chemical, Yuntianhua, Chitianhua, and Sichuan Meifeng, while Liuhua Co. and Hechi Chemical are also in the southwest. Because the drought is severe, agricultural production has been seriously affected, and demand for urea has greatly decreased. In order to strengthen sales, recently, when other brands of urea enterprises had poor sales in Guangxi and Yunnan, they turned to enter the Guizhou market for sales, leading to intensified competition in Guizhou's urea market. In response to the current actual situation of the Guizhou urea market, Chitianhua stated that it will timely adjust its sales strategy, adjust product sales prices and adjust product layout to cope with competition from other brands of urea.

From the overall perspective of the greater southwest, local sales of many fertilizer plants in the southwest are suppressed, and they are bound to seek other markets and try hard to squeeze into “others'” territory. Other domestic fertilizer production enterprises may be impacted by competitors from the southwest, and urea prices may come under pressure. The drought has also had a serious impact on urea transportation. The Chishui River is the river with the largest inland river transport volume in Guizhou Province, with transport volume accounting for about 40% of the total inland river shipping volume of Guizhou Province. At present, the average water depth of the main channel of the Chishui River has fallen below 60 cm, causing all ships transporting urea for Chitianhua to stop sailing. It is understood that water transport accounts for more than 80% of Chitianhua's fertilizer transportation. If the drought continues, it will cause serious difficulties for Chitianhua's urea output.