Winter wheat reaping in China has accelerated in the first three days of June to avoid further losses caused by unseasonal rainfall across the major cropping regions in the previous week.
Farmers have increased harvesting in the North China Plain's (NCP) main winter wheat-producing areas— especially in Henan province, the country's largest wheat supplier — with machinery support from local authorities. As a result, some 6.8mn hectares (ha) were threshed by 3 June, up from 3.8mn ha completed as of 1 June, data from China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Mara) show. This indicates that China's winter wheat harvest progress is over 30pc complete, with the country's overall wheat crop area for June 2023-May 2024 projected to hit 22mn ha for winter crop harvests, slightly higher than the acreage harvested in the previous season, Mara said.
The winter crop harvest in China's wheat belts reached the final stage in the Hubei province of the Yangtze river basin (YRB) as of 3 June, while farmers have threshed more than 60pc of the allocated area in the Anhui province of the YRB. Wheat harvesting in the YRB's Jiangsu province began late last week but still remains in an early phase, with only over 10pc of planned acreage completed as of 3 June.
In the NCP's Henan province, farmers have reaped 3.31mn ha as of 4 June, accounting for 58pc of the province's allocated acreage, updates from the provincial authority show. Harvesting progress reached some 370,000ha daily in Henan, as farmers and the local government tried to thresh grains as quickly as possible to avoid further quality deterioration in new wheat. Heavy rain and unseasonal wet weather at the mature-to-harvest stage in late May has resulted in sprouted grains and excessive kernel moisture — with moisture levels typically below 20pc for new crops in the harvesting period but currently exceeding 30pc in some regions — which increased farmers' costs of drying grains and the risk of mildew in storage.
Henan's local government on 4 June announced reference price levels for wheat that did not meet standards because of quality deterioration resulting from rainfall. Sprouted grains were priced at a range of 1,600-2,000 yuan/t ($225-281/t) depending on quality, while kernel moisture is requested to be below 13pc. Market participants expect this category of low-quality crops to be used as animal feed or only for industrial purposes —such as producing ethanol — instead of producing flour for food.
Millers in the key consuming regions further raised offers for flour-level wheat this week. Offers rose by Yn80-110/t to Yn2,840-2,900/t for milling wheat produced in 2022-23 and were up by Yn100-120/t on the week to Yn2,740-2,800/t for newly harvested crops on 5 June, according to market participants.
The weather is forecast to be favourable for reaping across wheat regions with the expectation of sunshine and limited rain over the week starting 5 June, according the National Meteorological Center. But Mara's investigation shows that harvesting progress is scheduled to start over the same period in the area north of the Yellow River, including northern Henan and Shandong, and Hebei and Shanxi in the NCP, which are also the country's key belts for winter wheat.
