The local government of east China's
Shandong
Province has handed out 180 million yuan (US$21.8 million) in
relief funds and supplied more than 9,090 kilograms of grain from
government storehouses to help the drought-stricken province's 9
million farmers through the winter.
"We will help every sufferer to live through the hard period, and
will not let them go begging because of poverty," said Qi Fenghai,
head of the Shandong Civil Affairs Department.
Qi
said starting from the beginning of this year Shandong Province has
given out a total of 180 million yuan (US$21.8 million) in relief
funds, including 86 million from the central government.
The official said various levels of government in the province are
still raising money to help the suffering farmers. The large scale
relief fund will be extended further among the farmers before
Spring Festival, the New Year in the Chinese lunar calendar, which
falls on February 1.
Grain lending, after trials in some areas, has begun in earnest in
some cities in the western part of the province. Borrowers can
repay the grain next summer or autumn.
How much grain the farmers will need in the next few months is
still unknown. The official said distribution of relief funds will
come before the grain assistance.
Statistics from the local water resources bureau show that the
amount of rain that has fallen since late August has been the least
in the past 50 years.
More than 48 million people and 5 million hectares of crop land
have been affected in some way. More than 3 million hectares have
been seriously affected, and one-third yielded nothing this
autumn.
The central and western parts of the province, including Heze,
Jining, Liaocheng, Jinan, Zibo, Binzhou and Dongying, are the most
parched.
In
late October the province pumped in more than 800 million cubic
meters of water from the upper reaches of the country's
second-largest river, the Yellow River.
Although the diverted water provided a temporary respite from
desperate water shortages for autumn planting and domestic use, the
local people are still suffering from food shortages due to the
stunted autumn crop harvest.
Shandong is one of China's largest agricultural provinces, as well
as being densely populated. The 9.01 million drought-hit people,
who need about 770,000 tons of grain, account for one-tenth of the
province's total population.
Wei Xiangyang, a farmer from Yongfeng Village of Zhanhua County in
Binzhou, expects to have a good winter now that he has received
hundreds of yuan in relief funds from the village and has borrowed
200 kilograms of wheat from the local town grain station. This
autumn Wei and other villagers have harvested only half of the
crops they did in past years. They were scraping on the family's
meager savings before they got help from the government.
(China Daily December 7, 2002)