Chinese Wheat
Chinese officials have warned that a severe drought in northern China – considered the country's breadbasket – has hit almost 43% of the country's wheat crop this winter. Low rainfall since October has affected land in northern China across six major grain-producing provinces.
Blaine Jacobson, Executive Director of the Idaho Wheat Commision discusses the situation in China.
(Jacobson) “If you go back into December and January, things were looking quite grim in China, their top wheat
producing province was way short on moisture and the picture was looking such that they would have to import vast
quantities. The drought situation has started to improve. The last couple of weeks, the region that was most affected
received some rainfall and some snowfall. It has brought the plant growth along. The temperatures have not been as
cold this winter so there’s been less frost kill than there has been in prior winters. So when you take all that into
account, what we’re being told now is that they might have a crop reduction of about 5%. Earlier they were looking at
15-20%. If they were put into a position where they needed to import even 15% of the crop, it would raise wheat
prices around the world.
