The Poyang Lake area is an important grain-producing area in China, and its neighboring counties (Poyang County, Yugan County and Duchang County) are all major grain-producing counties in Jiangxi Province, China. In previous years, it was the busiest and the critical time for the Poyang Lake area as farmers rushed to harvest early rice and dry paddies and to plant late rice. However, a catastrophic flood disrupts everything this year.
As of now, direct economic losses caused by floods in the rural areas of Jiangxi Province have reached RMB 10.07 billion yuan, and 1,316.9 mu of land has been affected (1 mu = 0.067 ha.).
How to save rice from flood disaster in the Poyang Lake area? Facing the catastrophic flood disasters, the local officials and the masses undertake the responsibilities and spare no efforts to combat against floods and resume post-disaster agricultural production so as to reduce the economic losses caused by floods effectively .
On July 22, 2020, the machines rumbled in the paddy field of Cheng Yonghua who is a large-scale grain-planting farmer in Shifeng Village, Mingshan Town, Duchang County, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province. There are several harvesters transferred from other places that are harvesting early rice. He said, “unexpectedly, a flood causes me heavy economic losses. I harvested more than 300,000 jin of paddies last year (1 jin = 0.5 kg). This year, I only harvest over 80,000 jin of paddies in more than 300 mu of land and suffer from a loss of more than RMB 100,000 yuan. What a miserable story!”
In the paddy field of Cha Benqiang who is a large-scale grain-planting farmer in Dongsheng Village, Wanhu Town, Duchang County, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, the reporter sees another scene: a group of young people are using sickles to harvest early rice in a rush. According to Zhu Enqing as the mayor of Wanhu Township, there are a task force team of 12 members dispatched by the Jiangxi Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to help control and combat against the floods.for agriculture.
According to Zhu Zhiming, deputy director of the Yugan Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs in Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province, in order to harvest the rice in a rush, Yugan County has strengthened contact with the Jiangxi Division of Agricultural Machinery and dispatched more than 4,490 harvesters by coordinating cross-regional operations for the rice harvest in Yugan County. By July 25, this county has harvested 846,200 mu of early rice timely, and meanwhile the agricultural production and the planting time are also not affected.
When the flood comes, the Jiangxi Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the local CPC committee and the local government immediately dispatch 79,000 harvesters every day for the urgent harvest of early rice in the disaster-stricken and flooded areas. For the lodging rice that is unable to be harvested by the machines, manpower is mobilized to harvest the early rice in a rush and minimize economic losses as much as possible.
What is the next step after harvest? Drying!
During the visit, the reporter found there are two types of drying, i.e., paddy drying factories operated by farmers or special paddy drying factories operated by other people. The Jiangxi Penghui High-tech Grain Company is a paddy drying factory operated by the farmers.
"The paddies that we rushed to harvest at our bases was directly loaded into the drying factories by trucks and were dried in time. After a few days of hard work, the urgent harvesting and drying work for early rice has been successfully completed, and all the dried paddies have been put into warehouses," said Chen Chong, the general manager of Penghui High-tech Grain Company in Jiangxi Province.
What about those farmers who do not have drying factories? In order to ensure the timely drying of paddies, the CPC Committee and government in Yugan County attached great importance to the drying of paddies. Six work force teams for drying have been set up and drying enterprises have been fully mobilized to participate in paddy drying. More than 1,300 grain dryers in the county are running at full capacity, but the drying needs still cannot be met.
Yugan County arranges special personnel to contact with drying enterprises in surrounding counties and cities to discuss drying and purchase matters, including Nanchang City, Yingtan City and Jinxian County, so as to ensure that the paddies can be dried in time.
Other grain-producing counties also take similar measures as Yugan County does. According to incomplete statistics, the whole Jiangxi Province has deployed 10,711 pieces of paddy drying equipment concentratedly, which basically realizes the goal that “the rice can be harvested in time and the paddies were dried to the maximum extent."
At the same time, late rice is planted in a rush.
Poyang County seizes the opportunity and adheres to the principle that "where the flood recedes, the late rice will be planted". More efforts are made to plant late rice and expand the area of late rice, and stabilize the grain and agricultural production this year.
In Yugan County, in order to minimize the economic losses caused by the floods, the agricultural and rural authorities further negotiate with seeds and agricultural materials enterprises, and urgently transferred 100,000 kg of seeds for disaster relief to ensure that local farmers can have enough seedlings during resuming agricultural production. The agricultural and rural authorities sets up six agricultural technical service groups to provide technical services in pratical production.
In order to effectively minimize agricultural losses, the Jiangxi  Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has sent 45 work steering groups by 4 batches to supervise and help control flood and relieve losses from the disaster in the hardest-hit areas. So far, Jiangxi Province has planted 13.935 million mu of late rice.