Rain-fed farms in Henan province have been at the whim of Mother Nature.
Farmwork is backbreaking, especially under an unforgiving sky that hasn’t rained in months.
13 February 2009
HENAN, China — Now I understand why so many of China’s farmers leave their homes in the countryside to look for jobs in the city, even though urban living conditions for migrant workers can be poor.
We followed the drought to Henan province, one of the driest areas. Fields of winter wheat stretch for miles, from the edge of the freeway over faraway hilltops.
We saw farmers bent over their crops, acre after acre, watering each sprout by hand. Many worry if it doesn’t rain significantly soon, their crops will die.
One farmer told us if he doesn’t have a good harvest, he will have no choice but to look for a job in the city. But jobs in the city are getting harder to find as China’s economy slows down. He hadn’t heard about the economic crisis.
Crops on irrigated farms may survive the drought. But in more remote areas, irrigation systems are poor or nonexistent. China’s rain-fed farms, the farms that depend on rain, are the most seriously threatened. They are at the whim of Mother Nature.
Mother Nature has wreaked havoc on China’s vast landscape in the last year, from snowstorms, to floods, an earthquake, and now the drought.
But the people who weather these natural disasters are resilient. There is a saying in Chinese: “Eat bitterness.” It refers to the ability of the Chinese to suffer without complaint, and still, survive.
The farmers in Henan province are yet another example.
Posted by: CNN Correspondent, Emily Chang
Filed under: China • Natural Disasters
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