Severe drought prevails in Northern and Western China, major winter wheat producing areas. Since the start of the 2008/09 winter wheat season, Northern and Western China have received precipitation levels 70-90 percent below normal. Drastically lower precipitation severely affected 9.5 million hectares of winter wheat (some 44 percent of total area planted) in the following provinces: Henan, Anhai, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu. Potentially affected output amounts to about 10 percent of China’s total annual cereal production.

http://ncc.cma.gov.cn map: http://ncc.cma.gov.cn/upload/upload2/hljc/eki090204.gif