Elsevier

Applied Geography

Volume 34, May 2012, Pages 519-524
Applied Geography

Commentary
Chinese drought, bread and the Arab Spring

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2012.02.004Get rights and content

Abstract

In 2011 winter drought in eastern China’s wheat-growing region had significant implications beyond the country’s borders. Potential crop failure due to drought led China to buy wheat on the international market and contributed to a doubling of global wheat prices; the resultant price spikes had a serious economic impact in Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, where bread prices tripled. Quantifying the 2011 drought in China’s wheat region with the Standard Precipitation Index identified extreme drought across the region that peaked in January 2011. Findings document the spatial extent and severity of the drought as the most serious on record and explain China’s efforts to minimize the 2011 drought’s domestic impact. The country’s mitigation efforts had repercussions in Egypt where high food prices were a contributory factor to civil unrest. Tracking the drought – wheat price rise – protest trajectory suggests the potential direct and indirect links between natural hazards, food security and political stability at local and global scales.

Highlights

► China’s eastern agricultural experienced extreme drought in winter/spring 2011. ► Chinese drought contributed to a doubling of global wheat prices. ► The drought affected the price of bread in Egypt which influenced political protest. ► The process exemplifies the potential global consequences of climate hazards today.

Introduction

Drought in China has been a serious disaster throughout the country’s history and has been cited for its contributory impact on social unrest and wars in the last millennium (Bruins & Bu, 2006). Identified as the hazard with the greatest global impact (Keyantash & Dracup, 2002), droughts are significant in China because of the number of people affected, economic losses and environmental damage that result (Zhai & Feng, 2009). Historically vulnerable to drought, China’s agricultural regions experienced a serious event that climaxed in January 2011 (Wu et al., 2011, Yu, 2011). That drought can have significant domestic impact is clear; the possible global consequence of China’s drought is a recent development (Sternberg, 2011). This paper assesses the drought’s link to global wheat prices and revolution in Egypt to highlight how natural hazards may affect food security and influence political stability. It broadens the scope of climate inquiry and suggests a potential research agenda that examines hazard impact on socio-political spheres.

The scenario encompasses the role of bread in Egypt, winter wheat crop failure in China due to drought and the global wheat market. It reflects the vulnerability of countries seeking food security – in this case wheat – in their pursuit of stability and how climate hazards can reach a global scope. Egypt’s geography and population combine to create a dependency on imported wheat and a subsequent exposure to external commodity factors. China’s past self-sufficiency in wheat, weather monitoring and capital reserves reduced the impact of climate variability on domestic food supplies. How both countries dealt with the perception of risk is key – China’s awareness of drought’s domestic implications led to mitigation efforts whilst the Egyptian government failed to grasp the social repercussions of escalating bread prices.

Widespread drought across the Eurasian steppe in 2010–11 and weather events elsewhere disrupted global wheat production, resulting in shortages and price spikes (USDA 2011). In Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, government legitimacy and social stability were upset by protests focused on political discontent, poverty and escalating bread prices (Johnstone and Mazo, 2011, USDA, 2011). Drought impact on food supply is well documented (Antwi-Agyei, Fraser, Dougill, Stringer, & Simelton, 2012); tracking its influence in 2011 identifies how a poor harvest in one country may affect the price of wheat internationally and may have contributed to unrest in Egypt. By assessing drought scientifically with meteorological data and drought indices this paper assesses the severity of China’s 2011 drought and potential implications for global food security.

Section snippets

Egypt

The 2011 Egyptian protests were instigated by political and socio-economic conditions in the country. As the world’s attention was focused on protests in Tahrir Square, political and socio-economic motives were discussed while significant indirect causes of the Arab Spring received little mention. Important economic factors included the high cost of living, 40% of the population in poverty and increasing food prices (Nowaira, 2011). Bread became an expression of citizens’ dissatisfaction with

Methods

Much recent work has addressed historic drought trends in China (Li et al., 2008, Zhai and Feng, 2009, Qui, 2010). Wu et al. (2011) highlight agricultural vulnerability to drought; Wang et al. (2011) note an increasing susceptibility to drought whilst He, Lü, Wu, Liu, and Zhao (2011) stress eastern China’s drought susceptibility. Using the Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) this paper focuses on the winter 2011 event to identify drought in the wheat-growing region of eastern China. After

Results and discussion

Drought reaching extreme magnitude occurred throughout eastern China in winter 2011. Examination at 12 sites in China’s wheat belt highlighted the dramatic extenuation of drought; findings documented extreme conditions across the region reaching ∼100-year event levels (Table 3). Identifying the seriousness of the drought is only limited by the shortness of the historical precipitation record (∼60 years); for instance local anecdotal sources report the drought to be the worst in Shandong

Conclusion

Unexpected circumstances saw extreme drought in China, the price of bread and political change become interconnected with Egypt in 2011. Matching scientific methods – the Standard Precipitation Index – with socio-political processes finds links between climate hazards and social issues that cross continents. This stresses the importance of examining issues that shape our world from multiple angles by combining different methodologies. Events suggest a potential research agenda for applied

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the British Academy and the Royal Geographical Society's Thesiger-Oman Desert Fellowship for research support.

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