Global climate patterns are shifting, and the agricultural sector is feeling the impact. Recent trading sessions saw A-share agricultural stocks strengthen, with some grain-related stocks surging over 100% in a short period. This rally is fueled by growing expectations of international grain price increases driven by the El Nino phenomenon.

The World Meteorological Organization recently confirmed that El Nino conditions have formed and will continue to intensify, potentially reaching super-strength levels, with extreme weather risks persisting through 2027. According to UN Food and Agriculture Organization data, the global food price index in August climbed to its highest level in nearly four years, with sugar prices jumping 11.9% month-on-month, alongside gains in grains, vegetable oils, meat, and dairy products.

Facing multiple rigid shocks to staple crop production, a campaign to secure harvests through climate resilience is unfolding across farmlands. From companies like Longping High-Tech and Denghai Seeds accelerating the breeding of heat-tolerant, flood-resistant, and pest-resistant varieties, to Sinofert Holdings and China XLX Fertiliser deploying integrated "quality fertilizer plus optimal farming methods" to underpin stable yields, the industry is mobilizing innovation at every level.


Multiple Structural Pressures Hit Staple Crop Output

El Nino originates from abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the east-central Pacific, disrupting global climate balance. This leads to a pattern of eastern flooding and western drought globally—with flooding in the Americas and reduced output in Southeast Asia and Australia—while China experiences southern floods and northern droughts. Historical strong El Nino events have repeatedly disrupted global agricultural supply.

Analyses indicate that El Nino's impact varies significantly by crop. Statistics from El Nino events since 1981 show that cocoa beans, natural rubber, and palm oil have high certainty of production declines; corn, cotton, and apples have relatively weaker decline certainty; while sugarcane, red dates, and soybeans tend to benefit, with higher historical probabilities of increased output. Wheat and rice show no clear impact trend.

Industry experts warn that beyond this summer's extreme precipitation, the lagged risks of El Nino warrant greater vigilance. The impact cycle of this strong event typically extends beyond six months, with lag effects expected to materialize prominently around 2027. This super-strength El Nino is projected to peak between October and December, keeping global agricultural prices prone to upside movement.

In terms of transmission pathways, cash crops show stronger certainty of impact than food crops. South American soybeans and Brazilian first and second corn harvests, with planting windows from September to December and January to February, could face excessive rainfall and potential flooding, reversing expectations of abundant harvests.

On the domestic production side, attention should focus on the late summer to autumn period of 2026 for autumn grain filling, maturation, harvesting, and winter wheat sowing. In the spring and summer of 2027, precautions are needed against northern spring droughts, late-spring cold snaps, prolonged rainy periods and flooding in the Yangtze River basin, and potential disruptions to spring sowing in the northeast.


Stress-Tolerant Varieties Form the First Line of Defense

In response to these challenges, Longping High-Tech has stated it continues to deepen research and development of high-yield, stable, and stress-tolerant varieties. The company is selecting new breeds with core traits such as heat tolerance, waterlogging resistance, fusarium head blight resistance, and pest resistance, while increasing research investment to solidify its variety pipeline. Several rice and corn varieties with superior stress tolerance have already passed certification and are being widely promoted.

During the recently concluded summer, many crops faced severe heat stress. In Changde, Hunan, a local large-scale grain farmer noted that his hundreds of acres of the 'Longliangyou 1957' variety remained largely unaffected by the extreme heat, still achieving high and stable yields. Longping High-Tech reports it is taking multiple measures against El Nino-induced risks, including meteorological monitoring for early warning to optimize production management, strategic layout of national seed production bases to mitigate natural disaster risks, strict field management for seed quality, and providing localized cultivation technical guidance to farmers to avoid negative impacts from extreme weather.

Further demonstrating progress, in Xiangzhou District, Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, a new rapeseed variety named 'Zhongyouza 501', bred by a team led by Academician Wang Hanzhong at the Oil Crops Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, delivered impressive results. Despite a one-month delay in sowing and continuous rainfall exceeding 40 days during the flowering and podding period, the variety achieved a harvested density of 31,000 plants per mu and a one-time mechanical harvest yield of 287.7 kilograms per mu—a 70% increase over the local average rapeseed yield from the previous year.

"In the face of extreme climate, innovation at the seed source is particularly crucial, which is accelerating the development and adoption of stress-tolerant varieties, forming the first defense for stable yields," noted an industry insider, suggesting that seed companies should prioritize breeding high-yield, cold-tolerant, heat-tolerant, and drought-resistant varieties.

Denghai Seeds reports that during the first half of the year, the industrialization of its transgenic corn continued to accelerate, with the promotion scope of approved transgenic varieties steadily expanding and market share gradually increasing. The trend indicates that technology is becoming the core industry driver, with transgenic technology, gene editing, AI breeding, and specialized varieties like dwarf-stalk and high-protein corn rapidly emerging.

As a leading domestic corn seed company, Qiule Seed Industry is building resilience on multiple fronts. In breeding, it is accelerating the selection of heat-tolerant, drought-resistant, and stable-yield varieties, treating climate adaptability as a core breeding direction. In production, it is strengthening manual assisted pollination during flowering, pest monitoring, and precision irrigation. In facilities, it is deepening water-saving irrigation and high-standard farmland construction. For risk assurance, it is expanding agricultural insurance coverage to enhance resilience under extreme weather. The company maintains continuous field monitoring of variety performance under extreme conditions, using stress resistance as a core evaluation criterion for variety selection to mitigate climate risks.


"Quality Fertilizer Plus Optimal Methods" Solidify the Foundation for Stable Yields

While superior stress-tolerant varieties lay the groundwork, scientific crop nutrition management and novel fertilizer technologies can effectively offset extreme weather impacts. Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs data shows that yield-per-unit-area improvements are projected to contribute over 90% to national grain production growth in 2025. Given limited arable land, high baseline yields, and the normalization of extreme weather, relying solely on variety improvement and traditional farming practices is insufficient to break through production bottlenecks.

Integrated innovation combining "quality fertilizer plus optimal methods" has become the core strategy for implementing "storing grain in technology" and enhancing agricultural climate resilience. In a demonstration field in Wucheng County, Shandong Province, corn plants show robust growth with deep roots and sturdy stalks. A local large-scale farmer observed that despite previous heavy fertilizer application, root systems were not as vigorous. This season, using a new program from Sinofert, corn roots are thriving and the ears appear robust.

To address the issue of insufficient nutrient absorption by crop roots, Sinofert has partnered with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to promote root growth through "signal-induced root promotion" technology. A researcher at the academy noted that a series of value-added fertilizer products have been developed to match farmland application scenarios in northern, northwestern, and southwestern China. These products have demonstrated average yield increases of 9.6% to 12.3% and fertilizer use efficiency improvements of 7.9 to 10.2 percentage points compared to conventional fertilization.

At the headquarters of China XLX Fertiliser in Xinxiang, a vast network of pipelines spans the facility, and surrounding 5,000 acres of test fields are validating new fertilizer types like slow-release and humic acid fertilizers across different crops and soil scenarios. Targeting concerns about soil compaction and declining fertility in northern dry farming areas, the company has pioneered efforts in humic acid, launching a product commonly known as "black urea." Humic acid fertilizers are described as providing "probiotics" to compacted soil, helping restore soil ecology and improve crop quality over time.

In a core sugarcane cultivation area in Wuming, Guangxi, the combination of humic acid compound fertilizer, integrated water-fertilizer management, and scientific practices has boosted sugarcane yields from an average of 5 tons per mu to 9 to 10 tons per mu.

"In the face of extreme weather, a single technology cannot guarantee crop abundance. This forces the agricultural technology system to upgrade towards multi-technology integration, demanding a more systematic and integrated approach," the researcher stated. "We must accelerate the construction of a comprehensive stress-resistant and stable-yield technology system that deeply integrates quality farmland, good seeds, quality fertilizers, and optimal methods. By coordinating technologies such as enhanced fertilizer functions, improved farmland quality, precise water-fertilizer management, and emergency stress prevention, we can address the shortcomings of individual technologies, comprehensively enhance the resilience of staple crops to compound stresses like high temperatures, drought, and waterlogging, and strengthen the stability and resilience of the agricultural production system."