Other threats

Scientists say China's rapid industrial development, economic growth and changing habits are having a serious impact on its environment and globally. But drought is historically common in China's north, and cyclical; 2009 was particularly harsh.

A farmer watches as water trickles into the furrows of his wheat field. This water came from a nearby reservoir, at Beichen village in suburban Jining, Shandong province. [China Daily]

Zhu Guilin, vice-director of Jining Meteorological Bureau, said cold fronts from the north control the region, leaving no space for warm air or a mix of warm and cold that would produce precipitation. He concedes that there have been dramatic weather changes in recent years but said, "It is hard to say whether it has anything to do with climate change."

Water shortages in the north of China have long been a concern, prompting the government to introduce a project to divert water from southern China to the north. But industrialization and urbanization mean that water consumption is on the rise.

Environment experts report that per capita water consumption in urban households can be up to three times that in rural households. That doesn't include water consumed in luxury activities such as golf, which is gaining popularity in cities as people become wealthier.

In the bustling city center of Jining, an hour's drive from Wucun, city dwellers are virtually unaffected by water shortages less than 100 km away. It is business as usual for carwashes. Guests in restaurants are automatically served water; they don't have to ask for it, a practice sometimes used in drought-stricken regions in the United States.

Li Minghui, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences' institute of agricultural economics and development, said industrialization represents as serious a threat to the Chinese wheat industry as drought. Factories occupy farmland and their pollution threatens the environment and, as a result, farming.

"Digging wells and diverting water from rivers could relieve drought in the short term," he said, but they pose potential long-term risks. Officials admit they are digging wells deeper and deeper. In Gaoyi village in Hebei province, a crack in farmland that is 50 meters long and 1 meter deep is blamed on draining underground water.

But Li also said technology may help farmers address such problems even as city dwellers use more water. Industrialization facilitates farming with better technology and equipment, he said, allowing more farmers to leave villages to find city jobs without diminishing crop production.

He predicted that farmland will consolidate, which will make dealing with issues like drought more effective. "In the future, it will be big companies or the best farmers who take care of the farming."

Changing landscape

Yuncheng county, which was once a purely farming community, now boasts a successful textile industry. The population is aging. Young men drawn by economic growth leave for big cities to work and women work for textile factories, leaving the fields behind. Officials say it is hard to estimate the impact of those changes on farming now.

He Bangxiang, 40, stood in his field on Friday after watering his 3-mu wheat plot, but he will leave for Shanghai soon to build roads. He brings home about 10,000 yuan a year from that work, while the total wheat harvest, even in good years, gets his family about 1,500 yuan.

His neighbor He Jiancai, 43, is going to Beijing to work at construction site.

Zhai Deling, a resident of rural Wucun, is not worried about the drought. She once farmed wheat, but changed to berries, which are more profitable and need less water and care. She is restricted to just four hours of tap water a day in the morning, but saves the water each day in a large tank in her yard.

Her real investment is not with land, she said, but in her 19-year-old son. He attends university in Yantai, a developed coastal city. He is studying to become a technician and has no intention of returning to the family's 3-mu plot.

"It is up to him to decide his future," Zhai said. "I don't want him to go back to farming."