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 located in 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 is included in table A.11 in Annex A.

Overview

This report covers the main growing period of winter wheat and rapeseed. The sowing of the first summer crops, such as  spring maize and early rice started in March. Generally speaking, agro-climatic conditions over the major winter crops producing regions were favorable.  For China, RAIN and RADPAR decreased by 11% and 3%, respectively, as compared to the 15 year average, whereas TEMP increased by 0.9°C. Consequently, BIOMSS was 5% above average and VCIx was quite fair, with a value of 0.88.

Spatially, 57.7% of the arable land experienced average precipitation throughout the reporting period. The south-eastern region (12.2% of cropland) went through rainfall fluctuations over time, mainly negative anomalies, with the largest negative rainfall anomalies (more than 30 mm below average) occurred in late January and late March. Average rainfall was 24% below the 15YA in that region. The remaining regions with green color went through some  rainfall fluctuations, but they were mainly positive departures. Temperature anomalies varied over time across the whole country. The blue marked areas had the biggest positive temperature departure (almost +5.0℃) in mid-Februrary. They included the provinces of Shaanxi, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan. Uncropped areas mainly occurred in the North-west and North-east regions and the provinces of Gansu, Ningxia, Shanxi, and some parts of Hebei and Shaanxi in Northern parts of China (Figure 4.4). 

In April, the cropping season is well underway in southern and central China. According to the spatial VCIx patterns (Figure 4.5), favorable crop conditions (VCIx larger than 0.8) occurred widely all across China especially in the Huanghuaihai; values between 0.5 and 0.8 were observed for the provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, and Ningxia where cropland was not fully cultivated during the monitoring period according to the CALF map. The potential biomass (Figure 4.6) showed significant variability across regions. Positive anomalies (more than 20%, marked in blue) occured in most areas north of Yangtze River , while negative anomalies (-20% or more) were mainly observed in the provinces of Yunnan, Guangdong, Fujian, Hainan and Taiwan. When it comes to VHIn (Figure 4.7), high values (above 36) are widespread in China, indicating limited water deficit effects on most of the winter crops.

As for the main producing regions at the sub-national level, rainfall was above average, ranging from +12% to +46%, except for Lower Yangtze region and Southeastern China. Temperature departures were all positive, ranging from +0.6°C to +1.3°C, with the highest positive departure in Lower Yangtze region. RADPAR was below average, except for Lower Yangtze region and Southeastern China. Consequently, BIOMSS increased in almost all the regions compared to average with the anomalies ranging from 4% to 24%, except for Lower Yangtze region and Southern China. CALF in all regions was quite different, ranging from 11% below average in Loess region to 7% above average in Huang Huaihai. As for VCIx, the values were quite high for all the regions, ranging between 0.81 and 0.94, with the lowest value occurred in Loess region mainly related to the reduced planted area.

Table 4.1 CropWatch agro-climatic and agronomic indicators for China, January to April 2021, departure from 5YA and 15YA

Figure 4.1 China crop calendar

Figure 4.2 China spatial distribution of rainfall profiles, January - April 2021

Figure 4.3 China spatial distribution of temperature profiles, January - April 2021

Figure 4.4 China cropped and uncropped arable land, by pixel, January - April 2021

Figure 4.5 China maximum Vegetation Condition Index (VCIx), by pixel, January - April 2021

Figure 4.6 China biomass departure map from 15YA, by pixel, January - April 2021

Figure 4.7 China minimum Vegetation Health Index, by pixel, January - April 2021