Chapter 4. China

This chapter starts with a brief overview of the agro-climatic and agronomic conditions in China over the reporting period (section 4.1). Next it presents an updated estimate of national winter crop production (4.2) and describes the situation by region, focusing on the seven most productive agro-ecological regions of the east and south: Northeast China, Inner Mongolia, Huanghuaihai, Loess region, Lower Yangtze, Southwest China, and Southern China (4.3). Section 4.4 describes trade prospects (import/export) of major crops. Additional information on the agroclimatic indicators for agriculturally important Chinese provinces are listed in table A.11 in Annex A.

4.1 Overview

During the current monitoring period, winter wheat and rapeseed were still at the growing stage while spring crops including spring maize and early rice were at the sowing stage. Generally speaking, agro-climatic conditions were favorable and beneficial for crop growth. At the national scale rainfall and temperature increased by 20% and 0.8°C respectively, as compared to the 15 year average, whereas RADPAR declined by 4%. Consequently, BIOMSS was 7% below average and VCIx was quite fair, with a value of 0.85. 

Spatially, 71% of the arable land experienced average precipitation throughout the reporting period. The remaining areas in the south-eastern region (13.2% of cropland), went through rainfall fluctuations over time. The most pronounced high rainfall anomalies (more than 75 mm above average) affected 18.5% of agricultural areas in late March mainly in the provinces along the Yangtze River. At the national scale, the temperatures had positive anomalies before early April, and then generally dropped to negative departures until the end of the monitoring period. In contrast to rainfall, temperature anomalies were much more varying over time especially in Southern China, accounting for 19.1% of the arable land, mainly including some parts of Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian, and Jiangsu province, where the anomalies ranged between -2.7 and +5.7°C. These are rather dramatic variations. Fortunately, they occcured before the start of the growing season. Uncropped areas mainly occurred in the North-west, North-east regions and the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei in Northern parts of China due to the low temperatures. The potential biomass (Figure 4.4) showed significant variability across regions. Negative anomalies dominated most of the country, mainly observed in the northern, southern and southwestern regions, while positive anomalies were mainly observed in the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi in the southeastern regions, as well as in some parts of Xinjiang, Shanxi, Henan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia.

The cropping season is well underway in southern and central China. According to the spatial VCIx patterns (Figure 4.6), favorable crop condition (VCIx larger than 0.8) occurred widely all across China; values between 0.5 and 0.8 mainly appeared in the provinces of Gansu, Shaanxi, Shandong, Hebei, and Shanxi where cropland was not cultivated during the monitoring period according to the CALF map. When it comes to VHIn (Figure 4.7), high values (above 36) are widespread in China, indicating limited drought effects on most of winter crops.

As for the main producing regions at the sub-national level, rainfall was significantly above average, ranging from +6% to +51%. Temperature departures were all positive, ranging from +0.4°C to +1.8°C, with the highest positive departure in north-east China. RADPAR in all regions was below average. Consequently, BIOMSS decreased in almost all the regions compared to average except for Lower Yangzte region, with the anomalies ranging from -16% to -3%. CALF in major winter crops regions was generally close to average, ranging from 2% below average in Huanghuaihai to 1% above average in Southern China. As for VCIx, the values were quite fair for all the regions, ranging between 0.76 and 0.90.

Table 4.1 CropWatch agro-climatic and agronomic indicators for China, January to April 2020, departure from 5YA and 15YA

Figure 4.1 China crop calendar

Figure 4.2 China spatial distribution of rainfall profiles, January-April 2020

Figure 4.3 China spatial distribution of temperature profiles, January-April 2020

Figure 4.4 China potential biomass departure          Figure 4.5 Cropped and uncropped arable land

from 15YA, by pixel, January-April 2020                     by pixel, January-April 2020

Figure 4.6 China maximum Vegetation Condition    Figure 4.7 China Vegetation Health Index 

Index (VCIx), by pixel, January-April 2020                 Minimum (VHIn), by pixel, January-April 2020