Global Times: In Central China's wheat fields, farmers and CPC members battle extreme weather to secure the people's rice bowl

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Editor's Note:

This year marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Over the past century, the Party has led China through profound transformations: from national peril to national rejuvenation, from bare subsistence to moderate prosperity, from technological catch-up to independent innovation and from isolation and underdevelopment to greater educational equity. Generation after generation of CPC members, through their unwavering commitment, have written an epic of uplifting the destiny of the Chinese nation, the well-being of its people and the course of national development.

July 1 marks the CPC's founding anniversary. On this occasion, the Global Times is launching a special series, "105 Years of Uplift," to explore the deeper answer to the question of why the CPC has succeeded. The second installment looks at how, in the face of extreme weather, the Party supported farmers to save a wheat harvest and, in doing so, upheld the fundamental promise of food security for hundreds of millions.

The sky had turned overcast again. Wang Yongzhong looked up at the gathering mass of gray clouds. A wind blew in from the fields, carrying the scent of ripening wheat - and with it, a trace of anxiety.

More than 66.7 hectares of Wang's wheat were still standing in the fields, while the weather forecast warned that a new round of torrential rain was heading toward his home in Xiangyang, Central China's Hubei Province.

Since mid-May, more than 300,000 hectares of wheat in Xiangyang had ripened all at once, only to be met by a rare spell of consecutive rainy days. According to local media reports, if the crop was not harvested urgently, a year's worth of farmers' hard work could go to waste - affecting the livelihoods of countless farming families involved, and, more fundamentally, posing a threat to the nation's food security.

But Wang, like many other farmers in Xiangyang, did not have to worry for long. Before the wheat harvest began, meeting rooms in many grassroots CPC organizations across the city were brightly lit as the Party members and officials discussed how to better help farmers bring in the crop. Local power utility workers also inventoried lighting equipment and prepared to head into the wheat fields through the night. Also, hundreds of kilometers away, combine harvester operators from across the country started their engines as they received calls for help from Xiangyang.

In the end, the race against the downpour - a "battle" to save the grain - was won through the efforts of all sides. Local farmers' anxiety gave way to the steady reassurance of a bumper harvest.