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.

4.1 Overview

This report focuses on the main growth period for winter wheat and rapeseed. The planting of the first summer crops, including spring maize and early rice, began in March. In China, half of the cropland is irrigated, making agro-meteorological conditions crucial for the remaining crops. Rainfall does not significantly affect irrigated cropland.

Agroclimatic conditions over the major winter crops producing regions were generally favorable. For China, RAIN and TEMP increased by 17% and 1.0℃, respectively, as compared to the 15-year average, whereas RADPAR decreased by 2%. Consequently, BIOMSS was 8% higher than average compared to the 15-year average. The favorable agroclimatic conditions were beneficial to crop growth. During the monitoring period, rainfall in China's main winter crop producing area (Huanghuaihai) was 38% above average and the temperature was 0.5℃ higher. The favorable hydrothermal conditions contributed to good crop growth, as confirmed by the VCIx value at 0.93. National CALF was at average and VCIx was quite fair, with a value of 0.86. National Crop Production Index (CPI) was 1.06, higher than last year (0.99) and the recent five-year average (0.97). According to the spatial VCIx patterns, favorable crop conditions (VCIx larger than 0.8) occurred widely across China. Overall, the summer crop production situation is optimistic.

Spatially (Figure 4.2), most of the arable land (marked in dark green, taking up 79.3% of the arable land) experienced average precipitation throughout the monitoring period, with the absolute value of departure less than 10 mm/dekad. Arable land in 17.1% of the regions (marked by light green) went through some rainfall fluctuations from April on (with positive departure around 50 mm/dekad), mainly distributed in most parts of Lower Yangtze region and some parts of South-West China. 3.6% of the arable land (marked by blue) experienced significantly excessive rainfall in early and late April (with positive departure more than 270mm/dekad in late April), mainly distributed in southern part of Fujian and Jiangxi, and most parts of Guangdong. According to the National Meteorological Administration, the top three stations in terms of accumulated precipitation from April 1st to 28th were all from Guangdong. Among them, Longmen station, which ranked first, had a cumulative precipitation of up to 1,128.9 mm, more than five times that of the same period in normal years. As far as agricultural production is concerned, the early rice in the above-mentioned areas experienced flooding. With respect to temperature, the clustered regions all had anomalies with similar changing patterns over time across the whole country. The light green marked areas, including most parts of Northeast China, had the biggest positive temperature departure (more than 5.0℃ above average) in middle Feburary and middle April. The dark green marked areas, including most parts of Huanghuaihai and Lower Yangtze region, and some parts of Inner Mongolia, Loess region and Northeast China, had the biggest negative temperature departure (more than 6.0℃ below average) in late Feburary. The uncropped areas were mainly located in the Northwest and Northeast regions and some parts in Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei. Cold temperatures during the winter months make them unsuitable for crop production. 

The potential biomass showed significant variability across regions. Positive anomalies (more than 20%, marked in blue) mainly occurred in most parts of Liaoning, Shanxi, Ningxia, Henan, and some parts of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Gansu, Shaanxi, Hebei, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hubei, Sichuan, and Chongqing, while negative anomalies (-20% or more) were mainly observed in most part of Yunnan, eastern Inner Mongolia, south eastern Hebei, north western Shandong, and central Shaanxi. With regard to VHIn, high values (above 35%) were 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 only below average in Southern China by 2%, while rainfall in other regions was above average, ranging from +3% (North East China) to +38% (Huanghuaihai). TEMP was all above average, and the range of temperature departures varied from +0.5°C (Huanghuaihai and Inner Mongolia) to +1.4°C (Southern China). RADPAR was all below average, except for Southern China (+3%). BIOMSS increased in almost all of the regions compared to average, with the anomalies ranging from +8% (South West China) to +22% (Loess region), except for Southern China (-7%). CALF in almost all of the regions was all below average to average, and only CALF in Loess region (+9%) and Huanghuaihai (+7%) was slightly above average. As for VCIx, the values were quite varying for all the regions, ranging between 0.69 (Inner Mongolia) and 0.93 (Huanghuaihai).

Table 4.1 CropWatch agro-climatic and agronomic indicators for China, January to April 2024, departure from 5YA and 15YA

Figure 4.1 China crop calendar

Figure 4.2 China spatial distribution of rainfall profiles, January - April 2024

Figure 4.3 China spatial distribution of temperature profiles, January - April 2024

Figure 4.4 China cropped and uncropped arable land, by pixel, January - April 2024

Figure 4.5 China maximum Vegetation Condition Index (VCIx), by pixel, January - April 2024

Figure 4.6 China biomass departure map from 15YA, by pixel, January - April 2024

Figure 4.7 China minimum Vegetation Health Index, by pixel (VHIn), January - April 2024

Figure 4.8 China time series of Crop Production Index (CPI), January - April 2024