Drought bakes China's wheat belt, slashing harvests for some

About an hour by road northwest of the famed Terracotta Warriors, combine harvesters send out clouds of dust as they work their way through the parched wheat fields of Maqiao village in China's northwestern Shaanxi province.

But local farmers like Zhou Yaping say there is little to celebrate.

Some of her crop is still tinged with green in a sign it hasn't fully ripened, and she expects she'll get only half the 1,000 kg of wheat her two-thirds of an acre plot usually yields.

"I've been growing wheat for over 20 years, and I've never seen a drought this bad," said Zhou, 50, during a late May visit.

Parts of China's wheat belt in Shaanxi and Henan provinces have been hit hard by hot, dry weather, with the sun baking the soil into cracked slabs and scorching the wheat before it could ripen.

Last month, Shaanxi recorded its highest average temperatures since records began in 1961.

While official figures are still some six weeks away, more than a dozen farmers in the area and those they hire to harvest the crop told Reuters of losses and small harvests, down as much as half for some.

In some parts of the province, the drought was so bad farmers brought the harvest forward by a week.

And while rain finally arrived in recent days, bringing some relief, it has also threatened to disrupt the harvest for those who waited.

It is too early to know whether the drought could prompt China to import more wheat, although that would be good news for growers in places including Australia, which expects high end-of-season wheat stocks, partly due to a drop in Chinese imports.

Ample wheat stocks and tepid demand have also curbed China's import appetite, traders said.

"The drought has had a significant impact on wheat yields in areas with poor irrigation infrastructure, but the overall reduction in output is not expected to be substantial," Rosa Wang at Shanghai agro-consultancy JCI told Reuters.

As of May 30, about 60% of the wheat crop in Henan and more than 20% in Shaanxi had been harvested, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Conditions vary across the vast agricultural belt. In Henan province, often called China's granary, a farmer surnamed Ma who runs a 50-acre (20.23 hectares) farm in Xinxiang said his output held steady because of irrigation.

But damage was clear elsewhere in the province.

In Zhumadian, another farmer, named Zhang, said he harvested 1.65 acres of wheat on May 23, more than a week earlier than usual due to the heat. Zhang, who spoke over the phone, said his yield was down 40%, similar to 2023 when floods led to sprouting and blight.

"After covering the costs of seeds, harvesting, and ploughing, we just break even with little to no profit," he said.

Ma and Zhang declined to share their full names for reasons of privacy.