Most Chinese provinces practice cropping intensities in excess of 100 percent: the average reaches 168 percent, a slight decrease compared to last year. More than half the provinces have cropping intensity values inexcess of 192, with values close to the maximum (235 percent in Guangxi) being observed in Zhejiang (234 percent) and in Jiangxi (226 percent). Interestingly,the next highest values are all about 20 percent below the top three. Thelargest decrease for cropping intensity this year occurred in Guangdong (-3.5percent), while the largest increase was recorded in Zhejiang (+3.5 percent).Both cropping index and cropping index change show a marked difference betweenthe average and the median, indicating a negative skew in the distribution ofcropping intensities between provinces.

Uncropped arable land is less than 1 percent (0.85 percent),a notable increase over last year, no doubt due to the variety of adverseconditions that have affected the country this year. The highest value is thatof Ningxia (3.8 percent). Regarding the potential biomass ratio (PBR), thedifference between median (0.897) and average (0.879) is significantly lessmarked than for the other indicators in this table. However, some spectacularchanges are recorded when comparing this year’s value with the previous one:from -5.8 percent (Anhui) to 25 percent in Ningxia.

As was also observed in chapter 3, the indicators are notmutually independent. A strong positive correlation (r=0.7) is noted between uncroppedarable land and the change in potential biomass ratio, pointing at increasingefficiency, particularly in areas where uncropped arable land is high.Noteworthy and significant negative associations concern cropping intensity andboth potential biomass ratio and its change since last year: the lower thecropping intensity, the higher the PBR and its growth. All these correlations couldstem from specific development efforts being targeted at the technologicallyless advanced provinces.

Table 5.2 China, cropping intensity,uncropped arable land, and potential biomass ratio, 2013, by province

Note: Δ% indicates percent difference with 2008-2012average. The averages were obtained by weighting table values by the total provincial area under maize, rice, soybean and wheat.

Cropping structure, that is the distribution of land between different crops, is shown in table 5.3 for four major crops only. The table immediately shows the relative importance of summer crops in terms ofcultivated land: maize: 59 percent; rice: 19 percent; soybeans: 6 percent. The provinces where maize occupied more than 70 percent of summer cultivated land include Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Liaoning, Ningxia,Shaanxi, and Shanxi, while Guangxi, Hunan, and Jiangsu cultivates very little.It is a characteristic of the maize data in table 5.3 that the crop either plays a dominant part, or almost no part. There are no “intermediate”provinces.

For rice, the focus (>40 percent of land) is in Guangxi,Hunan, Jiangsu, and Sichuan, and many provinces do not cultivate rice at all.As for soybean, it remains a subordinate crop, except for in Anhui (30 percent)and the three provinces of Guizhou, Heilongjiang and Henan where it occupiesbetween 10 and 15 percent. Henan and Shandong are the provinces which, by far,cultivate the largest proportion of wheat. Spring wheat is insignificant exceptfor Gansu, Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. The bulk of th production, however, originates in Henan, Shandong, Hebei, Jiangsu, and Anhui.

Table 5.3 China 2013 cropping structure

Note: Thenumbers indicate the percentage of the area cultivated under maize, rice, and
soybean during early July and early October, and under wheat during mid-May in2013.
The difference between 100 percent and the sum of maize, rice, and soybean per
province is “other summer crops.”
*Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang were not sampled because rice is byfar the
dominant crop among the four major crops.

** Both spring wheat and winter wheat were included.

5.3 Province narratives and figures

For each of China’s six regions, the figures 5.1 through 5.6present crop condition information. Similar to what was provided for countries in chapter 3, the provided information is as follows: (a) General setting,provided by a NDVI background showing combined maize, rice, soybean, and wheat cultivation area, and areas where more than 50 percent of the land is irrigated; (b) Crop condition map compared with the average of the previous five years; (c) Crop condition development graph: a comparison of NDVI of the current year with the previous year and the average of the previous five years;(d) Spatial NDVI patterns of the latest or ongoing season; and (e) NDVI profiles associated with the spatial patterns. Additional information,including CropWatch estimates for yield and cropped areas by province, is presented in Annex E.