BEIJING - A persistent drought in parts of China has affected 17.6 million hectares of farmland across the country since April, up 21 percent from the same period last year, the official Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.
Xinhua said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged local and central government departments to take efforts to secure water supplies for people and cattle in some northern, southwestern and southern areas that have been hit hardest by the drought.
It was not immediately clear whether the drought was changing the prospects for the 2006 harvest of major crops, such as corn, wheat or rice, that are expected to rise from last year's levels.
Southwest Chongqing, Sichuan and Guizhou, northwest Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Ningxia as well as central Hubei were badly affected by the drought, according to the report. These areas are not key grain producing areas.
China has farmland totalling about 120 million hectares.
Despite dry conditions in much of the country, the southeast coastal areas have been battered by typhoons and tropical storms, with hundreds of people killed by rainstorms, mudslides and floods.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
