Posted on June, 20, 2024 at 09:03 am
Over a dozen operators drove harvesters in an orderly manner through a vast wheat field in east China's major breadbasket province Shandong. In just 10 minutes, large areas of golden wheat are reduced to short stubble.
"The granaries are already full, yet there's so much grain that the trucks haven't finished unloading," said Guo Bobo, manager of the field and a major grain producer in Wenshang County. Guo's field reaps a record average yield of 9,750 kg per hectare.
Now is the busiest and most rewarding time for farmers like Guo, as China is in its peak summer harvest season, which usually spans from May to late June.
BUMPER HARVEST
Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs indicated that as of June 15, China had harvested around 310 million mu (around 20.68 million hectares) of winter wheat, with harvest progress surpassing 90 percent.
The wheat harvest in southwest China's Sichuan Province and central China's Hubei Province, two agricultural powerhouses, has concluded. Shandong, the country's second-largest wheat producer, has harvested 98.2 percent of its 60.54 million mu of wheat as of Sunday.
Shandong's total grain production has remained stable at over 55 billion kg for three consecutive years. This year, wheat yields and total production are expected to reach new heights, said Yang Wujie, an official from the provincial department of agriculture and rural affairs.
This summer, the main winter-wheat-producing provinces across the country have maintained stable or slightly increased planting areas, with overall wheat growth conditions better than usual, laying a solid foundation for a good summer harvest, according to the ministry.
Behind this progress lies China's commitment to summer grain production by enhancing rural infrastructure, developing high-standard farmlands, and investing in the grain seed industry alongside scientific and technological research.
In Shandong, nearly 76.43 million mu of high-standard farmland have been developed, covering about 80 percent of the province's total cultivated land and 90 percent of permanent basic cropland, according to Yang.
"The strategy of 'storing grain in the field and technology' is fundamental to China's efforts to secure food production capacity," said Li Genying, a researcher at the Crop Research Institute, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Source: Xinhua