China-Bumper Harvests

Shotlist

Jinchang City, Gansu Province, northwest China – Recent (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
1. Aerial shot of field
2. Various of harvesters in operation
3. Grain being poured
4. Farmer working
5. Various of wheat
6. Aerial shot of wheat field, harvesters in operation

Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, east China – Recent (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
7. Aerial shots of rice paddies
8. Harvester in operation
9. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Hong Binyi, director, agricultural technology station in Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou (partially overlaid with shots 10-11):
“Now, each factory for raising rice seedlings basically has a demonstration field, and introduced more than 10 varieties of high-quality rice. These factories carry out trial planting and demonstration on a small area. By comparison, they screened out new varieties of high-quality rice suitable for local cultivation.”
10. Harvester in operation
11. Rice paddies
12. Various of harvester in operation, farmer

Chongqing Municipality, southwest China – Recent (CCTV – no access Chinese mainland)
13. Aerial shots of sorghum farmland, harvesters in operation
14. Harvesting machinery operating on farmland
15. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Sun Jian, person in charge, sorghum planting base in Tongnan (ending with shot 16):
“I planted almost 1,000 mu of sorghum this year. The whole process [of planting and harvesting] has been mechanized. The density has increased this year, so the benefits have improved by about 10 percent.”
16. Various of harvesting machinery operating on farmland

Nanyang City, Henan Province, central China – Recent (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
17. Aerial shots of rice paddies
18. Various of rice paddies

Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, central China – Recent (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
19. Aerial shot of sweet wormwood farmland
20. Aerial shot of farmers harvesting sweet wormwood
21. Various of sweet wormwood
22. Various of farmers harvesting sweet wormwood

Storyline

China has been busy reaping a variety of summer crops such as rice, wheat, sorghum, and sweet wormwood in August, embracing a bumper harvest which farmers say would bring an economic windfall.

Yongchang County in northwest China’s Gansu Province has widely adopted whole-process mechanization technique to ensure growth in grain areas and volume of production from sowing to harvesting. The promotion of planting technology has effectively helped homogeneous irrigation, water saving, fertilizer saving and seed saving in grain production.

Local farmers are using modern harvesters to reap wheat crops as its summer harvest is drawing to an end.

In addition, in Fujian Province on China’s east coast, the lush spring-seeded rice has fully ripened. So far, the local summer harvesting of early rice has completed in a combined area of over 260,000 mu (about 17,333 hectares).

Zhangzhou City in Fujian has focused on establishing a batch of demonstration areas for grain production capacity for stabilizing rice planting and production in recent years.

At present, nearly 400,000 mu (about 26,666 hectares) of demonstration areas have been established in the city.

Meanwhile, the city has set up 30 rice seedling bases, which can provide a variety of high-quality strong seedlings for 45,000 mu (about 3,000 hectares) of farmland every year through a large-scale concentrated raising seedlings method.

“Now, each factory for raising rice seedlings basically has a demonstration field, and introduced more than 10 varieties of high-quality rice. These factories carry out trial planting and demonstration on a small area. By comparison, they screened out new varieties of high-quality rice suitable for local cultivation,” said Hong Binyi, director, agricultural technology station in Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou.

The harvesting of early rice is coming to an end and the planting is underway, while there is only a short window of time for accomplishing both tasks.

As one of the major grain producers in the country, central China’s Henan Province is making all-out efforts to ensure a smooth process of grain planting, purchasing and processing to protect farmers’ interests.

In Tongbai County, 300,000 mu (about 20,000 hectares) of rice is growing well, which portends a good harvest.

In Tongnan District of southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality, farmers are harvesting more than 6,000-mu (about 400 hectares) of sorghum, with many large-scale harvesting machinery operating on the farmland.

“I planted almost 1,000 mu of sorghum this year. The whole process [of planting and harvesting] has been mechanized. The density has increased this year, so the benefits have improved by about 10 percent,” said Sun Jian, person in charge, a sorghum planting base in Tongnan.

Farmers are busy reaping more than 50,000 mu (about 3,333 hectares) of sweet wormwood in Yongzhou City central China’s Hunan Province.

The total production of sweet wormwood is expected to be 12.5 million kilograms this year.