Chinese authorities have ramped up emergency measures to ensure food supply and stabilize prices, as a powerful cold wave grips large parts of the country, bringing heavy snow, strong winds, and plunging temperatures that are likely to adversely affect agricultural production.
In the Dongcheng Trade Market in Huai'an City of east China's Jiangsu Province, the morning bustle begins early. Stalls are neatly stocked with a sufficient supply of vegetables, such as potatoes and Chinese cabbage, ready for residents to purchase.
As one of the largest local agricultural markets, Dongcheng Trade Market plays a crucial role in ensuring food supply for hundreds of thousands of people in the surrounding communities. To mitigate the potential impacts of the current cold wave, market management has taken multiple measures to stabilize supply and prices, including expanding sourcing platforms, smoothing logistics channels, and stockpiling vegetables, meat, and aquatic products in advance.
On the production front, farmers and agricultural experts are teaming up to maintain stable vegetable output. For instance, in a rapeseed cultivation base in the city of Changde in central China's Hunan Province, tailored frost prevention measures have been put in place.
"Prolonged low temperatures can cause significant frost damage to the stems and leaves of rapeseed. For weaker seedlings, we can apply winter fertilizer, and where conditions allow, anti-frost agents can also be sprayed," said Xue Gaoshang, director of the oil crop research institute at the Changde Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences.
In Changde, the agricultural department has collaborated with local meteorological and other relevant departments to analyze data including soil moisture and seedling age. Based on the findings, rapeseed fields have been classified into three categories -- "overgrown seedlings", "weak seedlings", and "normal seedlings" -- allowing for the early implementation of differentiated preventive measures.
Additionally, agricultural experts have formed special teams and been dispatched to several major rapeseed production areas.
They provide customized guidance by classifying and managing fields according to their specific conditions and seedling types, helping farmers take scientific and effective steps to prevent frost damage and ensure the safety and stability of agricultural production.
Currently, the 4.329 million mu (about 288,600 hectares) of winter rapeseed planted in Changde are growing well.
Efforts to ensure food supply underway as cold wave sweeps across China
