Chinese media's drought warning

North China rivers running dry

By BBC Monitoring's Charis Dunn-Chan

The Chinese media have been highlighting what they report as the worst drought in a decade in northern China.

All the river beds on the north China plain are reported to be running dry. The bad news is that drought is now being reported in the sub-tropical south.

This week the China Daily said reservoirs in parts of the southern province of Guangdong had dried up completely.

Newspaper and magazine articles have also been warning of the danger of even greater water shortages in the future unless the government takes drastic action.

The authorities say that this year-long drought is "historically rare".

But some specialists interviewed by regional newspapers have said that much of the water shortage is a man-made calamity, caused by bad policies and poor management.

Because water is subsidised, farmers often flood fields to irrigate crops rather than use more efficient forms of irrigation.

Wasted water

Zhang Jiacheng of China's Meteorological Science Research Institute said in a newspaper interview that the amount of water wasted in irrigation was "astonishing".

The official news agency, Xinhua, earlier this year called for urgent water management policies to prevent wastage. It said the amount of water wasted each year was equivalent to the water deficit.

Rice harvest facing downturn

The water shortages have badly hit this year's summer grain harvest. The Food and Agriculture Organisation says the early grain harvest was down 9% on last year and it forecast that the early rice harvest would be down by 8%.

Many farmers are already leaving the land because of illegal and punitive local taxes which leave them unable to make a profit. Drought just makes life harder.

Most analysts predict that China's imminent entry into the World Trade Organisation will only exacerbate farmers' problems. An influx of high quality staple products from overseas will make domestic agricultural products even less competitive.

Many farmers are leaving the land

Hong Kong newspapers have reported that the government is concerned that widespread hardship could spill over into even greater rural unrest.

Tens of thousands of farmers in the south eastern province of Jiangxi rioted this summer. All local officials have been warned to deal strictly with any further unrest.

Xinhua has even taken on government policy on water diversion. It dismissed the official idea of diverting water from the south to the north as a "fanciful notion".

"Given the existing set-up, water diverted from the Chang Jiang (Yangtse River) would also be all used up and wasted," Xinhua said.