According to the Agriculture Minister, since October rainfall in northern China and regions along the Huai River in the east dropped by 70 to 90 per cent compared to a year earlier. This is threatening 9.5 million hectares of winter wheat, which is planted in the fall and harvested in late spring or early summer. Altogether this represents 43 per cent of all winter wheat sources.

As a result of the situation the National Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief has declared a “level 2” emergency, calling it a “severe drought rarely seen in history.”

Zhang Zhitong, a deputy chief of the office, said that local officials must make “fighting the drought and protecting seedlings a major task”. He also said they must expand irrigation coverage.

In Henan alone rainfall was down between November and late January by 79 per cent compared to last year.

Nearly two-thirds of the province's wheat crop are in a drought-affected area

Anhui, another major wheat-growing province, reported that 70 per cent of its 1.62 million hectares of wheat were affected by the “once in 50 years” drought.

Other major winter wheat-growing provinces such as Hebei, Shaanxi and Shanxi were also reporting vast areas impacted by drought.

Water has been piped to about 60 per cent of the affected areas but the situation could become serious if there was no rain soon.

Unfortunately meteorologists said there was no sign of rain for the next 10 days.

The consistent lack of rainfall has been blamed on relatively high winter temperatures and might very well jeopardise the government’s goal of “stable growth" in agricultural production and higher farm incomes.

The country's overall grain yield has grown every year since 2004, reaching a record 528.5 million tonnes last year.

Thus, on the short run, the current drought should imperil the country’s food supplies since the mainland has adequate grain reserves which it has built up over the past five years.