When a rare bright sunshine of late glistened off the seldom snow-covered Dabashan Mountain in southwestern China, Zhu Guangming had a gut feeling his subtropical existence was about to return.
Persistent snow over the past 20 days had killed the rapeseed, broad beans, wheat and spring yams in his fields. Even the yam seeds stored in his cellars were ruined by frostbite.
Grumbling about the foul weather that had confined them to their homes for days, Zhu and his extended family in Tianchiba Village of Dazhou City, Sichuan Province, gathered in a field, anxious to test a technique that agro-technicians claimed would help rescue their grain crops.
All his suspicion vanished when those familiar tender purple yam sprouts had prospered on his two-mu area (0.13 hectare) of land.
Having reaped the benefits, Zhu, one of the few who had seized on the break in intermittent snow and freezing rain to put corn stalks into soil to secure what agro-technicians called "constant temperature", rushed to pull out frozen rape and plant back yam seeds.
Dazhou Agricultural Department chief Peng Biao likened the cornstalk to "winter clothes" for grain crops not only conserve temperature but also fertilized the soil.
As the snow disaster ravaged most of central, southern and eastern China in late January, local authorities delivered more than 10,000 tons of yam seeds to farmers for free. The precondition was to adopt the corn stalk practice.
"We've made requests, but it takes everyone's enthusiasm to restore agricultural production rapidly," Peng said.
In the worst-hit Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, 62 percent of the subtropical and tropical grain crops damaged by the snow, or five million mu, had survived the cold snap.
Tangerine trees were draped in white membrane while banana seedlings prospered under arch sheds made of plastic membrane. To prevent potatoes from frostbite, farmers were told to timely drain slush from underground and spray pesticides to prevent disease.
In northwestern Shaanxi Province, cotton curtains were hung in the doorways of greenhouses, while heating stoves and charcoal burners were employed to dispel the freezing.
As the weather got clearer during the Spring Festival holiday, farmers in the worst-hit Hunan Province received fast-maturing vegetable seeds, such as broccoli, cabbage, cowpea, corn, tomato and eggplant, from local governments for free and rushed to start the spring plough.
The unprecedented snow havoc, the worst in at least five decades, had actually sparked sweeping field trips across rural China where farmers got better equipped for the adverse weather.
Considering most of the worst-hit regions -- Hunan, Hubei and Guizhou provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region -- provide fresh vegetables during the annual off-season in April and May, the disaster relief and emergency command center said China would face much higher pressure on vegetable supply this year.
Recognizing capital and labor constraints as imminent difficulties facing agricultural production, the national government mobilized agro-technicians and grassroots cadres to deliver door-to-door services on post-disaster reconstruction. Free seed, fish fry and livestock were made available to farmers.
In addition, 27,500 VCDs, CDs and books on frostbite prevention and post-disaster reconstruction were delivered to snow-hit regions, Agricultural Ministry sources said.
Central Radio Broadcast even launched a series of programs each morning to spread news on the much-needed techniques.
The command center also asked agricultural departments to closely track price fluctuations and to coordinate the supply and demand of farm produce.
Last year, triggered by an outbreak of blue ear pig disease, pork prices almost doubled. It sparked an upward trend in the country's consumer price inflation that rose 4.8 percent in 2007 and hit an 11-year high of 6.9 percent in November, well above the government target of three percent.
Source: Xinhua
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