Chinese Drought, Wheat, and the Egyptian Uprising: How a Localized Hazard became Globalized

Climate conditions put market pressure on international wheat prices, which were further exacerbated by a lack of precipitation in China. This threatened the 2010–2011 winter wheat crop—a crop that accounts for 22 percent of the country’s harvest. Examination of the drought record at 12 sites in China’s eastern wheat belt—including Shandong, Henan, and Anhui provinces, with a combined population of more than 300 million—using the Standard Precipitation Index, or SPI, which tracks the dramatic extenuation of drought in China’s eastern region. (see Table 1) The index examines precipitation anomalies at selected meteorological stations to identify the spatial and temporal extent of drought.[10]

With data from the China Meteorological Administration, the SPI was used to calculate drought on a monthly timescale. The findings documented extreme drought across the region, reaching once-in-a-century levels. Drought severity affected domestic and agricultural water supply, closed parts of the Yangtze River to shipping, dried reservoirs, and reduced hydropower generation, prompting a strong government response to the disaster.[11] The rarity of the event contributed to its potentially significant agricultural and socioeconomic impact and prompted dramatic photographs of Chinese Premier Wen Ji Bao watering the wheat fields with a garden hose and military rocket launchers “shooting the clouds” to bring rain.[12]

Discussion

The 2011 extreme drought in the Chinese wheat-growing region exemplifies how a regional climate event can have both a regional and a global impact. Potential wheat crop failure contributed to a series of government actions that influenced economic and political conditions in other regions of the world. China’s drought mitigation effort—including $1.9 billion in new water infrastructure and the purchase of wheat from external markets—contributed to the skyrocketing cost of wheat for importing countries.[13]

This is particularly pertinent to Egypt, a country that spends 3 percent of its gross domestic product on wheat subsidies and that experienced the 1977 “bread intifada” that killed 77 people and the bread riots in 2008.[14] Higher wheat prices affected the cost and availability of bread in Egypt, influenced citizen protests, and indirectly led to regime change in Egypt. This chain of events and actions highlight how government effectiveness—or lack thereof—in two autocratic regimes resulted in opposite outcomes and reflects how in today’s interconnected world, natural hazards can influence economic (price), political (government stability), and human (food supply) systems on an international scale.

Climate

As stated above, we have reached the point where a regional climate event can have a global extent.[15] Impact is no longer limited to physical damage at a disaster’s epicenter. Rather, it can also be social and economic, as hazards affect globalized systems. Recent disasters, including tsunamis in Asia and volcanic eruptions in Iceland, reflect the cross-border effect of natural hazards. Hydrometeorological disasters predominate today and occur at a greater rate than geophysical events.[16] Future shifts in climate patterns (cooling or warming), seasonality (fluctuation in precipitation/temperature patterns and occurrence), intensity, and volatility can significantly impact the environment, agriculture, water supply, and livelihoods.

In this study, a series of droughts and rain episodes in one region in 2010–2011 had economic and then political effects thousands of miles away. Such unfolding progressions are more commonly evaluated when events affect oil prices, famine, migration, or terrorism—for example, conflict, the Iraq war, drought in the Horn of Africa—but similar scenarios are likely to be repeated as climate volatility, expanding populations, and competition for resources disturb global markets and possibly national stability.

Geography

The geography of the two countries contributes to their dependence on climate factors, as both Egypt and China are predominantly arid nations. Egypt’s climate limits its ability to expand grain production to satisfy the requirements of an expanding population. Throughout the Nile region, there is competition for farmland and water between urban centers and agrarian interests, as well as between high-value exports crops such as flowers and mangoes, and staple foods such as wheat. Failing to meet domestic demand left Egypt exposed to external forces (climate, economics) and reliant on changing international commodity markets.

China’s western and northern regions are predominantly drylands—the country’s large population and agricultural production is centered in the eastern and southern regions. Currently this area has enough land, water, and technology for domestic wheat production to be self-sufficient in most years. Yet water resources are concentrated in the south and strong finances and continued government effort are required to develop agricultural resources elsewhere and mitigate the hazards of such reliance on a single growing region.

Both countries’ governments have attempted to balance agriculture, finances, and food supply with public needs. In 2011 China succeeded, while the former Egyptian regime failed.

Future Implications

The effect of climate hazards on wheat production in 2010–2011 is a striking case of how hazards, agriculture, economics, and politics can become intricately linked. As protests spread across North Africa and the Middle East, it is interesting to consider the percent of income spent on food and the average age of the world’s major wheat-importing countries per capita. (See Table 2)

One instantly notes that the top nine importers are all in the Middle East; seven had political protests resulting in civilian deaths in 2011.[17] Households in the countries that experience political unrest spend, on average, more than 35 percent of their income on food supplies.[18] This contrasts starkly with developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in which households spend less than 10 percent of income on food. Conditions reflect the dependence of Arab nations on imported food and their vulnerability to fluctuating global commodity markets.

As global wheat prices doubled, pressure on domestic bread prices increased in the region and influenced public dissatisfaction with governments. High commodity imports, low income levels, and the percentage of earnings spent on food combine to affect food and social security. Two Middle Eastern countries not experiencing protests—Israel and the United Arab Emirates—have high income per capita, a low percentage of income spent on food, and the ability to adjust and adapt to changing food prices and supply. Population growth is an additional factor: While China’s median age is 34.2 years, more than half the population in several Middle Eastern and North African countries, including Egypt and Syria, is under age 25.[19]

In China the poverty rate has fallen to reach 13 percent over the past 30 years as a result of the country’s rapid economic development, [20] while poverty rates in Egypt were estimated at 25 percent in 2010 to 2011 by the official Egyptian Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, and in reality may be higher.[21]

Moreover, China has $3 trillion in foreign reserves that enable the government to spend as much as is needed on commodities—wheat, in this case—or invest in drought-alleviation measures in affected regions. In contrast, the Egyptian system has been less capable of perceiving and meeting basic needs of its population. Whereas in 2010 a vast majority of the Chinese (84 percent) were highly optimistic about the future, most Egyptians (73 percent) expressed great pessimism with the country’s direction prior to former President Hosni Mubarak’s fall.[22]