Influence of Drought on Corn Yield in China
|出版日||ページ情報||英文 41 Pages
|中国のトウモロコシ栽培に対する干ばつの影響 Influence of Drought on Corn Yield in China|
|出版日: 2014年06月25日||ページ情報: 英文 41 Pages||
Corn, first planted from the sixteenth century in China and now one of the three major grain crops in China, has witnessed fast growth in the past six decades. China's corn planting area is projected to continue expanding in the coming years, mainly driven by the robust demand from feed and industrial sectors, relatively high planting profit and strong policy support.
Climate change is one of the major factors influencing China's corn planting. Among all the natural disasters that affect corn planting, the impact of drought is considered the most significant. Under the global warming and depravation of China's ecological environment, drought occurrence in China is estimated to be on an uptrend in the future.
In China, drought usually occurs unevenly in different regions, seasons and years, while corn's planting area is sprawling irregularly during the past years. Accordingly, the overlapping or staggering of drought occurrence with corn planting by geographic distribution and seasonal distribution aggravates the impact of drought on corn yield.
In order to figure out the impact of drought on corn yield and forecast the corn planting in China, CCM carries out this research, namely Influence of Drought on Corn Yield in China, through the following aspects:
China, the second largest corn production country in the world, has witnessed great changes in its corn planting in the past six decades since 1949. The fastest growth of corn planting in China took place in the XXX, XXX, and XXX~now, with policy and demand as the two most important drivers. In these three periods, both planting area and unit yield of corn increased significantly.
Corn planting has become increasingly concentrated geographically in China. Among China's six corn planting areas, XXX and XXX, with favorable climate conditions like temperature and rainfall quite suitable for corn growth, are major corn production regions, taking up about XXX% of China's total corn planting area and more than XXX% of the national output.
Although these two regions have the largest drought affected areas in China (based on annual drought affected area averaged for years 1990~2011), the seasonal distribution of drought is XXX for corn growth, as it usually occurs in seasons when XXX. At the same time, rainfall in these regions is usually seasonally concentrated in periods XXXX.
However, though the seasonal and geographic distribution of drought in China is favorable for corn growth in the major corn planting areas, CCM's correlation analysis of drought impact on corn yield finds that drought has an XXXXXXX on corn yield in China on the whole. However, the significance of impact varies from region to region.
Although XXX, XXX, XXX and XXX ranked the top four drought affected areas in China, the correlation between drought and corn yield in these four regions is not that high compared with the rest major regions and China's overall level. Reasons for each region are different.
Besides, compared with other types of natural disasters, drought has the strongest correction with corn yield, that is to say, among all disasters, drought causes the largest damage to corn yield. That's because China's major corn planting areas are also areas with the largest drought affected areas, and drought is the major natural disaster threatening their corn planting.
In China, the central and local governments play a key role in combating against drought; while farmers' efforts vary according to the size of their farms. Usually farms with large and middle farms are more willing to take actions to counteract droughts, while small farmers aren't so enthusiastic in doing this.
Among the major factors influencing corn planting in China, climate change's impact is not so significant, but it does have some impact on China's corn planting. When only the climate change is taken into consideration, and if the drought affected areas in the coming years is below the average level of the past decade China's corn planting is expected to witness positive growth; while if it is well above that average level, negative growth is highly likely and drought resistant corn varieties will be more widely promoted in China.
XXX Commercial in Confidence.