As deluges subside, villagers get busy replanting

Since floodwaters started to recede in late July, villagers affected by deluges in Anhui province have been racing against time to replant their fields.

It's hot in Fuyang's Funan county, with the temperatures reaching as high as 37 C during the day. Despite this, both Lang Kehong and his wife in Liying village, governed by Wangjiaba township in the county, have spent hours in the heat every day planting scallion.

The seedlings were provided free by the local government.

"If we don't plant in time, they will easily rot, and the earlier we plant them, the earlier we will harvest," said Lang, adding that some senior neighbors who can't bear the heat plant at night.

Besides scallion, villagers have been focused on replanting fast-growing vegetables and crops such as cabbages, green beans and buckwheat, according to Zhang Zhiyu, head of the Funan bureau of agriculture and rural affairs.

A few days ago, the village was submerged by floodwaters from the Huaihe River, which is several hundred meters away.

Wangjiaba and other three towns lie in the river's Mengwa Flood Diversion Area, which covers 180 square kilometers of land and is home to about 195,000 people.

Every time the river swells from heavy rains, the Wangjiaba sluice gates are opened to divert the excessive floodwaters to the Mengwa area to protect people from the upper and lower reaches of the river.

On the morning of July 20, the gates were opened for the 16th time since they were built in 1953.

By the time the gates were closed on July 23, 375 million cubic meters of water had submerged all the fields in Mengwa.

The floodwaters came in rapidly but drained slowly.

Among the four submerged townships, Wangjiaba, which is closest to the gates and the highest in elevation, is the first and only area whose farmlands have emerged from water so far.

"Direct economic losses in the Mengwa area could reach over 500 million yuan ($72 million) this time," Zhang said.

Though the villagers will be compensated, the current compensation standard hasn't changed since 2007, when villagers were last forced to sacrifice their land because of the floods.

"The standard should be updated to meet the latest losses, though it will by no means be an easy job," said Cui Li, Party chief of Funan, which had been a key county for the country's poverty alleviation campaign until April this year, when it was officially lifted out of poverty.

He said many modern farm facilities have invested in the area over the years to increase the villagers' incomes.

"Though we know better and will make sacrifices again in the face of another flood, we have never waited to be flooded. We cannot do that," Cui said.

"The replantation is key to not only reducing the villagers' losses, but also to the supply of agricultural products," Zhang said.

He said the replantation is a race against time, and they have been doing it inch by inch.

"Once a plot of land is uncovered by the water, disinfection and replantation will follow," Zhang said.

By Thursday, only 15 square kilometers of farmland in the Mengwa area had emerged from the water.

For fields that have emerged within the last week, villagers have begun focusing mainly on planting vegetable species suitable for autumn and winter, such as carrots and garlic, according to the local agricultural authorities.

Another 100 hectares of ponds have been disinfected and supplemented with 1.13 million fish to further restore local farming.

Zhou Deqiang, an official deployed to assist the villages before the opening of the sluice gates, is based in Xiaomatai village of Laoguan township, which is still isolated by floodwaters.

"We are still waiting, but nobody knows for how long," he said.