The impact of earthquakes on local people’s lives and production

“Strong earthquakes will cause various damages and impacts on the ecological environment, and their impact on agriculture cannot be underestimated.” Liu Qing, a researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in an interview recently, “Initially It is estimated that more than 10 million acres of farmland will be damaged. "

Sichuan is my country's major agricultural production province, accounting for 6.1% of the country's grain area and 6% of its grain output. . Among them, the summer grain area accounts for 6.9% of the country's total, and the summer grain output accounts for 5% of the country's total. Although Wenchuan is located in a high mountain valley area and agriculture is not very important, the agriculture in Mianyang, Deyang, Guangyuan, Ya'an, Chengdu and other areas affected by the earthquake was greatly affected. According to Wei Chaoan, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, more than 500,000 acres of crops have been affected by the disaster, and a large number of summer crops in the fields cannot be harvested.

The biggest problem is that there is no land left for farming. Liu Qing said: "A large amount of farmland has been flooded and destroyed, resulting in a sharp reduction in farmland area. In addition, the fertility and farming performance of the newly covered alluvial soil are very low, and land productivity may be greatly reduced."

Liu Qing also specifically pointed out: "The hardest-hit area of ??this earthquake is an important vegetable supply base in the Chengdu Plain and surrounding provinces and cities. Due to the higher altitude in the affected area, vegetables are on the market later than in the plain areas, which is used to supplement the supply of vegetables in the off-season. Therefore. It is expected that this earthquake will have a greater impact on the supply of vegetables in winter.”

Xie Gang, an industry researcher at Sinolink Securities, emphasized the impact of the earthquake’s damage to water conservancy projects on local agriculture in Sichuan. He said that Sichuan's rice production ranked fifth in the country in 2006, but compared with the peak in 1996, the total production dropped by 38.78%, and its proportion of the country's total rice production also dropped from 11.19% to 7.32%. One of the key reasons First, the disaster-stricken area in the province, especially the drought-affected area, remains high. "We predict that this earthquake may cause certain damage to farmland water conservancy facilities in Sichuan, and the water storage and water storage capacity and water allocation capacity will be weakened. In 2008, grain production was affected by waterlogging, especially drought, and the output may be Significant decline.”

However, the impact is more local in Sichuan than nationwide. According to analysis by Shi Jiangang, an analyst at Tianxiang Investment Consulting Co., Ltd., the affected crop area of ??more than 500,000 acres accounted for only 0.49% of the province's grain crop planting area in 2007. In 2007, Sichuan Province's grain planting area accounted for 6.1% of the country's. % calculation, the impact proportion of the disaster-stricken area on the country is 0.03%, and the impact is relatively limited.

As for the impact on pig production, Shi Jiangang believes that although Sichuan is the largest pig producing province in my country, most of the pig production bases are concentrated in southern Sichuan, such as Chengdu, Nanchong, Ziyang, Dazhou, Yibin, Pork production in eight main producing areas, including Liangshan, Mianyang and Luzhou, accounts for 51% of the province's total. Although Mianyang and Chengdu are within the scope of the disaster, in the short term, pork prices in Sichuan Province may also fluctuate due to factors such as poor transportation, but the impact on the long-term domestic meat price trends will be limited.