Back-to-Back Typhoon Strikes Devastate Yangtze Delta Farmers
Last week, the Jiangsu–Zhejiang–Shanghai region was pummelled by two Force 10 or above typhoons in quick succession over four days—a historically rare occurrence.
At around 7.30 a.m. on 16 September 2024, Typhoon Bebinca made landfall along the coast of Lingang New City in Pudong, Shanghai. With maximum sustained winds of Force 14 near its centre, it swept through at 42 m/s, making it the strongest typhoon to hit Shanghai and its surrounding areas since 1949.
In the early hours of 19 September, barely two days after Bebinca had passed, Typhoon Pulasan hurtled in at 60 km/h, lashing the Jiangsu–Zhejiang–Shanghai region with the Force 10–11 winds of a severe tropical storm. As Pulasan’s intense radar echoes moved onshore, widespread extremely heavy rain fell across the eastern Pudong–Fengxian–Minhang corridor, with isolated areas of Pudong and Fengxian recording over 300 mm of extreme heavy rainfall, causing severe regional waterlogging and secondary disasters.
With one typhoon after another sweeping through, how did farms in the heart of the storm cope? What did the scene look like on the ground? To find out, we contacted several eco-farms struck by the typhoons as soon as they had passed.
I. Shanghai Lexiangu Community Farm: Typhoons Visit Often, Defence Is Key
The farm covers 86 mu (approximately 5.7 hectares), with over 40 mu of woodland and 30 mu of vegetable plots. Surprisingly, despite taking the storms head-on, the damage was relatively modest: the two most critical timber utility buildings were left unscathed; among the crops, only the maize and trellised vegetables suffered severe lodging; the remaining losses amounted to a few toppled trees and some signage boards. Farm owner Yuan Qinghua explained: “Our farm is relatively small in scale, with no large-scale infrastructure to speak of, and we grow a wide variety of crops, so we can adjust quickly after a disaster.”
Because Lexiangu Farm sits not far from Hangzhou Bay, it is hit by typhoons every year, and Yuan told me they have years of experience in typhoon defence. “Long before a typhoon arrives, I pay close attention to changes in its track—checking the forecast every hour or two so I can judge likely wind shifts and rainfall, and put protective measures in place in good time.”
From two days before the storms made landfall, he had been methodically organising staff to carry out all preparatory work: every tent and marquee canvas was struck down, greenhouse film was taken off the polytunnels, and taller structures were all lashed with rope. Knowing that the torrential rain a typhoon brings can easily cause waterlogging, all drainage channels—large and small, inside and outside the farm—were thoroughly cleared so standing water could drain away promptly. With every precaution in place, all farm staff evacuated to safer ground for temporary shelter when the storms struck.
What worries Yuan Qinghua most now, however, is a severe drought following the flooding. Such “bungee-style” swings in the weather could affect the planting and seedling survival rates of autumn vegetables, so the farm plans to replant after the storms to minimise the losses.
II. Kunshan Yuefengdao Organic Farm: Tall Trees Caught the Wind, but New Polytunnels Were at Least Spared
As Typhoon Bebinca drew near, the Kunshan Meteorological Bureau issued the Orange Rainstorm Warning Signal and the Blue Typhoon Warning Signal in succession, and the entire city activated a Level IV Emergency Response for typhoon defence. At 11.30 a.m. on 16 September, the typhoon centre crossed into Kunshan, with peak winds reaching Force 13 and regional daily rainfall hitting 150–180 mm. Then, on 19 September, Typhoon Pulasan swept in, delivering yet more torrential rain to a farm that had barely caught its breath.
As a diversified experiential farm, Yuefengdao has long drawn urban visitors with its scenic beauty and leafy, tree-lined paths. But in the typhoons, the trees and infrastructure bore the brunt: roughly one in ten trees with a trunk diameter of 30–40 cm snapped in half; broken branches and fallen leaves clogged the roads and drainage channels, demanding extensive manual clearance; and parts of the infrastructure sustained varying degrees of damage. Most notably, a brand-new vegetable polytunnel costing several hundred thousand yuan had its steel pipes—each as thick as a man’s forearm—snapped, leaving the entire structure tilted at an angle. Repairs will take time, severely hampering autumn vegetable production.
Farm technical supervisor A-Tang told me that crop losses were heavy: the maize and cucumbers at harvest stage were wiped out entirely. Fortunately, the rice suffered relatively little lodging. “First, our rice varieties are fairly well adapted to the local climate; second, we are currently at the anthesis and grain-filling stage—once the ears form and the heads grow heavy, I expect widespread lodging. Compared to what it could have been, this is a blessing in disguise.”
Yuefengdao also maintains saved-seed conservation bases for dryland and paddy cropping, having built up over 200 heritage local varieties through year-on-year in-situ conservation since 2021. For A-Tang, he treasures every one of those seeds as if it were his own child. The typhoons brought down all the trellises supporting leguminous crops such as hyacinth beans and yardlong beans in the dryland plots, potentially jeopardising the seed-saving programme.
III. Suzhou Wuyuetian Organic Farm: Insurance in Place, but Polytunnel Losses Were Severe
To maintain a steady year-round vegetable supply, the farm has invested heavily in infrastructure: across its 219.85 mu (approximately 14.7 hectares), it has 166 single-span greenhouses, 6 multi-span greenhouses and basic fruit-tree structures.
Before the typhoons struck, the farm also took proactive defensive measures—clearing drainage channels, securing film-retention lines on the greenhouses, closing greenhouse doors and windows, and conducting safety briefings for all staff. However, from the photos sent by technician Xiao Shi, it was clear that greenhouse damage was severe: roof film had been blown off many of the structures, and the most expensive multi-span greenhouses had suffered serious roof breaches.
The farm’s own tally after the two storms recorded: 65 sections of greenhouse film destroyed, 15 steel frames damaged, insect netting on over a hundred greenhouses torn and stripped away, bird nets over the pear trees destroyed, and all open-field maize and okra lodged flat.
Xiao Shi and I worked through the costs in detail: “Greenhouse film needs replacing—a 6-metre panel for a single-span greenhouse runs about 600 yuan, while smaller film panels cost around 120; then there are spring clips, clip channels, film-retention lines and other fittings, plus insect netting at 200, and the netting on over a hundred greenhouses all needs reattaching. Multi-span greenhouses cost far more—outer film per bay is about 6,000 yuan, so replacing damaged two-bay sections comes to 12,000. In the end, insurance pays out proportionally to our declared value, estimated at around 100,000 yuan, which can barely cover the film costs alone, never mind the labour at roughly 600–900 yuan. With our scale, we’ve essentially worked the whole year for nothing.\”
Notably, Wuyuetian Farm was the only farm among those we interviewed that had purchased agricultural insurance. Although the insurance pays out at a certain proportion, compared with the losses wrought by the typhoons, it is still a drop in the ocean.
IV. Jiaxing Fukang Shengliang Farm: Crops Must Weather the Wind, Management Is Key
On my visits in each of the previous two years, typhoons had also just passed, and the contrast between Liu Wei’s rice and the surrounding plots was stark: while every other field’s crop had already lodged flat, his stood vibrant and upright with barely a single stem down.
Liu Wei explained: “My approach is grounded in soil health. I follow the ancient wisdom that the best physician treats illness before it manifests, managing the farm in harmony with the natural cycles of mutual generation and restraint between the soil ecosystem and the crops.” What Liu Wei practises is bio-dynamic farming, which emphasises sustainable cultivation through techniques such as crop rotation, green manure incorporation and soil-friendly machinery operations.
I asked him to go further, and he said: “Put simply, when the soil is healthy, crops can draw on nutrients fully, their natural defences strengthen, stems grow sturdy yet resilient, and root systems develop deep and extensive—so they can effectively withstand typhoons and other natural disasters.”
During last week’s two typhoons, Jiaxing fell within the Force 7–9 wind ring, with rainfall reaching heavy to locally torrential levels; short-duration precipitation in the farm’s area exceeded 100 mm. After this second consecutive typhoon strike, I contacted Liu Wei again.
Liu Wei said it was the first time he had seen such wind and rain: “The rain fell so densely it seemed to come down in parallel sheets from the sky—it was extraordinary.”
The rice was affected, too: a small fraction of the harvest was lost, and some plants experienced poor pollination during anthesis, though fortunately the losses from lodging were not severe.
However, the old variety Suyu Nuo still suffered relatively serious lodging. Liu Wei reflected on three contributing causes: first, seed degeneration—he had failed to save seed last year and was still working with seed from the year before; second, the soil was overly fertile, causing some leggy growth—stems reached 1.3 metres tall, and now that the plants had entered maturity, their top-heavy heads made them prone to lodging in high winds; and third, to safeguard pollination, water control had been inadequate—the water levels hadn’t been adjusted in a timely manner to suit actual field conditions.
The ever-reflective Liu Wei then offered a summary: “Don’t chase soil fertility blindly—adjust and manage according to each crop’s characteristics and the prevailing climate. To make things easier to manage, this year I streamlined my varieties down to ten. Had I grown dozens as I did last year, many of them tall-stemmed old varieties, it would have been disastrous.”
Liu Wei had not purchased agricultural insurance, but he noted that before the typhoon, local government issued early-warning notices, and through the “Hangjiahu Plain Southern Drainage Project”, farmers were helped to drain standing water from their fields ahead of the storm, greatly reducing subsequent waterlogging.
V. Witnessing Those Who Live by the Land Amid Extreme Climate
I live in Kunshan, squarely within the core path of the typhoon. As it passed through, the whole city plunged into gloom; fierce winds swept in rain that fell in waterfall sheets, and I could feel the entire building tremble. After the storm, power and water were cut off across the building. The government had to summon repair crews from northern Jiangsu for emergency electricity work. The city lay in wreckage, and everyone huddled anxiously at home.
Reports said that two delivery riders were electrocuted and killed during this typhoon. In a residents’ group chat, someone sighed: “We thought disasters were far away—we never imagined lives could be lost in an instant.”
After the typhoon, a handful of aunties and uncles set up makeshift stalls selling produce on the commercial street outside our door. One uncle’s maize was remarkably cheap—a huge pile for just 10 yuan. I asked him why it cost so much less than anyone else’s. He replied: “This is from my own plot. The typhoon knocked every stalk flat, and I couldn’t bear to see it go to waste in the field, so I picked it all. The land was flooded and waterlogged—just pay whatever you think is fair. It’s a natural disaster; what can you do?”
People in cities can scarcely feel what is happening elsewhere; the more convenient life becomes, the further we drift from rooted, place-based living—from the land itself. Yet natural disasters spare no one. When an entire region is subjected to nature’s fury, it is also a moment to reflect.
Although this round of interviews was far from comprehensive, and information from some farms affected by the storms was simply not captured in time, I hope more people will look beyond their plate and cast their gaze out to the vast fields—to see what agriculture on the front line is going through. With climate change upon us, the threat of typhoons may only grow; let us hope today’s experiences can leave lessons for the future.
A metaphysics enthusiast who follows climate and agriculture issues—gazing at the sky, the earth, and the self.
Editor: Wang Hao
This reporting was supported by Friends of Nature’s Linglong Programme