“A little more food is an economic issue in China, but a little less may turn into a political problem,” the South China Morning Post quoted agriculture analyst Zhang Xin as saying.

Last week, China’s Henan province was flooded leaving at least 25 people dead. But along with that, it is worth noting that the province is the second largest grain producer for the country – accounting for more than one-tenth of the country's total output, the Global Times said.

Foreign policy watchers said that a large part of the crops have been destroyed.

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“Many are asking: will the extreme rainfall weather cause a significant impact on China's food output and prices this year,” the Chinese news organisation acknowledged. Though it pointed out that the floods will have little impact on crop production, analysts, India Narrative spoke to, said that this is one area that China is “getting more and more worried about.”

Frequent floods in China have not only affected the lives of thousands—many have died too—they have led to concerns regarding food production. Severe weather fluctuations from floods to droughts in China, which has 1.4 billion people, have become a cause for concern.

“China is a huge country but the production of rice and other crops has been dropping. The arable land is not very large and many parts of the country face severe weather conditions,” one of the analysts told India Narrative on condition of anonymity.

The Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development or Agribank in its report said that data put out by the of the Customs Authorities of China noted that China’s rice imports in the first two months of 2021 reached 910 thousand tonnes, worth $434.15 million. This is “a sharp increase of 203.3 per cent in volume and an increase of 180.6 per cent in value over the same period in 2020,” the report said.

China has also started importing broken rice from India.

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“Indications are that China will import more rice from India in the coming months as its production has been lower due to floods,” Vinod Kaul, executive director, All India Rice Exporters’ Association said. “As rice production has also been dented in Thailand and Vietnam, China could look to India to meet its requirements,” Kaul said, adding that rice orders are placed directly with the private mills.

According to SCMP, “shocks from the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, as well as the outbreak along with floods that swept China’s southern region and a summer drought in the north in 2020, have all put pressure on China’s food security.” It also said that several countries, including Russia, Ukraine and Vietnam, imposed strong restrictions on food exports, which affected the Chinese market and sparked concerns about the country’s food security.

Meanwhile, China’s President Xi Jinping has underlined the need to be self-sufficient in food production. Xi’s Clean Plate Campaign launched last year with the aim of reducing food wastage has also created panic.