After the torrential rains in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, smallholders still struggle with climate adaptation
While urban production and daily life have largely recovered, the impact of extreme weather on farmers is not a fleeting event tied to a single location; it is far more enduring than one might imagine. First came the searing heat of multiple days exceeding 40 degrees in June and July, followed by the recent “heaviest rainfall in 60 years”. What does this two-month stretch of extreme weather mean for farmers? In the aftermath of the floods, how are they to pick up the pieces and prepare for the next unforeseen extreme weather event?
1. “Complete Wipeout”
If that had happened, more than half the village would have been submerged. Neighbours who had the means had already fled to the city. Should their home have flooded, Chen Ziyu and his family would have had no choice but to flee as quickly as possible to find shelter. It was only later that people learned the average rainfall in Baoding over those two days had reached 141 mm, nearly a third of the annual average.
Currently, Chen Ziyu and his family run an eco-farm called “Wocuiyuan” in Beiligezhuang Village, Qingyuan District, Baoding. The farm covers over 100 mu, primarily growing wheat and coarse grains, with some vegetables and watermelons. Among these, 20 mu of maize were planted in an auxiliary flood discharge channel that had not seen water for decades.
After the rain, muddy floodwaters rushed through this ditch, leaving only the tips of vast stretches of emerald-green maize visible above the surface. Even two weeks after the heavy rains ceased, the accumulated water in the ditch refused to drain. Needless to say, the maize suffered a complete crop failure; the late watermelons and tomatoes were also wiped out to the last one.
He did a rough calculation: the 20 mu of maize alone represented a loss of 50,000 yuan in output value, “and that’s calculating it as conventional maize.” His family grows organic maize, which requires higher investment in fertiliser and labour and commands a higher price, meaning the actual losses will be even heavier.
With the land waterlogged, everything must start from scratch. The collapsed plots need repairing, the land must be tilled again and left to dry in the sun, and once the soil moisture levels are right, Chinese cabbage must be planted quickly.
In contrast, Xiao Liushu Farm in Shunyi, Beijing, was far luckier. Shunyi District, located in the north-eastern suburbs of Beijing, was not among the hardest-hit areas; rainfall was relatively lower, and the drainage around the farm was decent, allowing it to escape the worst of the flooding. However, the farm still suffered immense losses.
“I’ve been in agriculture for ten years, and this is the first time I’ve encountered something like this,” said Liu Gang, the head of Xiao Liushu Farm. “The soil became saturated, and many of the crops drowned: open-field broccoli, celery, tomatoes, sweet corn, kale… and every single one of the short-cycle leafy greens was completely wiped out.”
The nursery was flooded. Once the rain stopped, Liu Gang and his workers rushed in to save the plants. Wearing wellington boots, they sank deep into the mud with every step, as water rose to their calves and seeped into their boots.
“Even the ginger drowned,” Liu Gang said, bewildered. “Ginger hates drought and needs constant watering. In previous years, it’s never died from the rain.” He estimates that the loss from these vegetables alone is approximately 100,000 yuan.
Furthermore, the greenhouses were damaged by the storms. Xiao Liushu Farm primarily produces vegetables and, in addition to open-field cultivation, maintains both cold frames and warm greenhouses. This time, the cold frames bore the brunt of the damage, as the rainwater accumulating on the plastic sheeting simply collapsed the structures.
Beyond the reduced yields, the flavour of the vegetables changed noticeably. Liu Gang believes that high levels of acidic substances in the rainwater made the produce taste astringent and bitter. “Regardless, I don’t think they taste good; I’m almost too embarrassed to recommend them to anyone.”
II. Were the drainage efforts up to scratch?
Reflecting on this storm disaster, Liu Gang believes that the primary focus must remain on effective waterproofing and drainage. For example, the materials used to build the cold frames were substandard; the piping was too thin and needs to be replaced with sturdier tubes. Furthermore, since the seedling nursery is located in a low-lying area of the farm, he is now considering installing racks to keep the seedling trays elevated.
Little Willow Farm has been based in Qijiawu Village, Shunyi, for four years. The surrounding area consists of state farms that have operated for three or four decades, and their fields are criss-crossed by massive drainage ditches—over a metre wide and five metres deep. At the time, Liu Gang could not understand why such large ditches were necessary in a place as arid as Beijing; they seemed only to occupy arable land and hinder production efficiency.
This rain revealed the value of these ditches—investments maintained for a long time for the one moment they are truly needed. He plans to carry out careful planning this winter, not only digging drainage ditches but also installing simple facilities in the low-lying areas of the farm to drain water as cost-effectively as possible.
This was the lesson he took from the floods; beyond this, Liu Gang believes there is little else to be done. He will not adjust his planting schedule because of it, and he remains noncommittal regarding the idea of “flood-resistant varieties”. As Liu explains, crops are either drought-tolerant or moisture-loving, but even the latter cannot withstand being submerged; the key is to drain the water quickly.
For small-scale farmers, the value of a drainage ditch must be weighed against its cost. Their livelihoods depend on the yield of every single inch of soil. Therefore, the cost of a ditch is not just the investment in labour, machinery, and time during excavation, but also the long-term cost of leaving land fallow year after year.
To some, leaving a piece of land idle for the sake of a potential, unforeseen flood is an overly extravagant luxury.
The 20 mu of maize that were flooded on Chen Ziyu’s farm were planted in a backup floodway. Yet, he says he will continue to plant there next year. This rain was simply too extreme, too rare; there had been no such surge in the channel since the Great Flood of the Haihe River Basin in August 1963. In other words, it is not economical to leave a ditch idle for 60 years just to avoid a disaster once a year.
Chen Ziyu replied: “If this is how it’s going to be, no measure will help. We’d all have to move. If you can’t even save your own life, how are you supposed to care for the fields?”
III. What have farmers done to cope with extreme precipitation?
In recent years, there has been a trend of floods in the north and droughts in the south, with a marked increase in precipitation during the rainy season in North China. For some farmers, adaptation to these wetter summers is first reflected in changes to their cropping patterns.
Take the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market, where Liu Gang and Chen Ziyu are members, for example. Because they deal directly with urban consumers, these fellow farmers often adopt a production strategy of small batches and high variety. Some have already begun consciously planting more ‘southern vegetables’ that thrive in wet conditions. Liu Gang discovered this time that his taro not only suffered no losses but actually grew exceptionally well.
Secondly, soil improvement has also proven to be a powerful measure for coping with both drought and flooding.
Just a few days before this round of heavy rainfall, Beijing experienced a downpour on 25 July following a period of prolonged heat and drought. After more than three hours of gale-force winds and rain in Shunyi, the organically grown maize at Xiaoliushu Farm was blown to a 45-degree tilt, whereas the conventionally grown maize nearby was completely flattened.
Liu Gang places immense importance on soil, believing that the key to ecological farming lies in nurturing healthy soil. Having worked for a Japanese firm in his early career, he pivoted to organic farming and studied innovative agricultural practices from Japan and the US. He uses leaf mulch composting to maintain balanced nutrients and a loose soil structure that ensures proper aeration and water retention. Such soil is resilient to both drought and flooding and acts as a buffer against temperature extremes, making it a vital tool for coping with extreme weather.
While healthy soil can withstand more severe drought and flooding than the depleted soils reliant on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, there is still a limit.
Liu Gang takes pride in the fact that his farm’s soil is far more permeable than that of his neighbours, and he had never previously encountered drainage issues. As he looked optimistically at his maize lodged at a 45-degree angle, he could hardly have imagined that another deluge, lasting three or four days, would arrive shortly after to drown his sweet corn.
IV. The Challenges of Post-Disaster Management
Following such rainfall, conventional farms typically spray large quantities of herbicides. However, ecological smallholders like Chen Ziyu and Liu Gang rely primarily on a combination of machinery and manual labour to manage weeds. In the aftermath of the storms, the fields became excessively muddy; Liu Gang’s small tractor became bogged down and remained stuck for three days. Forced to adapt, he and his workers had to manually turn the soil repeatedly with harrows. Consequently, the labour and time costs for weeding surged three or fourfold.
Another challenge was the alteration of the soil structure and microbial environment caused by the deluge. Liu Gang explained that the soil previously had a healthy aggregate structure; however, after being saturated, the sand rose to the surface while the clay and stones sank. This necessitates manual tilling to restore the structure; otherwise, the ground hardens—becoming compacted and cracked, resembling the bed of a reservoir during a severe drought.
Once the surface soil compacts, it becomes a breeding ground for harmful bacteria. Following this rainfall, a layer of green microorganisms appeared on the farm’s surface. Only by harrowing the soil to allow air and sunlight to penetrate can the microbial balance be restored.
“It’s the only thing we can do; we’ve already tilled the land twice. The key is still to let the sun dry out the soil,” he said.
Chen Ziyu also kept a close eye on the soil moisture levels. As soon as the soil recovered, there would be a race against time to plant Chinese cabbage. In the village, many fields suffered total crop failure; everyone waited anxiously for the waters to recede, all contemplating the same remedial measure: planting cabbage.
At this stage, cabbage was the only crop viable for the damaged land. However, Chen Ziyu was already concerned that by the end of the year, a glut would drive prices down, hurting the farmers. “It has happened before,” he noted. “The selling price didn’t even cover the cost of the labour to harvest the cabbage, so it all just rotted in the fields.”
Beyond the increasingly humid summers, the farming community in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has been far more attuned to the hallmarks of climate change than those in the cities.
Take the cabbage, for instance. Chen Ziyu recalls that when he was a child, everyone in the village planted their cabbage on the day of *Liqiu* (the Start of Autumn). “It had to be that exact day; any earlier or later wouldn’t do.”
But as the climate has warmed and accumulated temperatures have risen, the growing season has extended, pushing the date for planting cabbage later and later. If planted too early, the cabbage hearts rot. Locals have realised that scheduling farm work according to the traditional twenty-four solar terms is no longer practical.
This deluge also gave Chen Ziyu his first glimpse of watermelons rotting to the point of growing mould. On closer inspection, this too was linked to climate change. Abnormal heat in June and July had pushed soil temperatures too high; when the watermelons needed moisture most, the rains failed to arrive, and irrigation could not keep pace. Consequently, some melons withered and died just as they were nearing ripeness, leading to an overall yield reduction of sixty per cent compared to the previous year.
Chen Ziyu suggests this may be because the growing seasons for all crops are shifting later. He intends to continue planting late watermelons next year and will begin keeping detailed records.
V. Who bears the cost of climate adaptation?
Yet, adjusting a farmer’s perception takes time, and identifying new climatic opportunities requires a combination of chance, continuous observation, and a significant foundation of knowledge.
While there is a vast body of research at the regional level using model simulations to study how climate change affects planting systems, these studies fail to provide practical guidance for the farmers actually working the land on how to avert climate disasters or leverage new climatic opportunities.
To combat the uncertainties brought about by climate change, smallholders must invest additional time, labour, and capital to maintain their production. As for how these costs of climate adaptation are to be borne, and by whom—the answer remains blowing in the wind.
