Many orange farmers in Guangdong province lost their livelihoods to the blizzard that seized southern China in January, despite government efforts to help them get back on their feet.

As of March 4, Guangdong's agricultural and livestock industries had lost more than 3 billion yuan ($423 million) to the snowstorms. In addition, the province's aquaculture sector lost more than 6 billion yuan, according to figures from the Guangdong agriculture department.

But orange farmers were hit particularly hard by the bad weather, which destroyed tens of thousands of kilograms of their crops, because winter is the harvest season.

In Fogang county, in the city of Qingyuan, the snows caused direct losses of 17 million yuan to local agriculture - 15 million yuan of which came from oranges.

In Fogang, as in many other places in Guangdong, local governments are offering discounted loans to farmers. To date, the county government and its credit union have appropriated about 32 million yuan for loans to orange farmers.

The provincial government has donated more than 10 million yuan to Shaoguan and Qingyuan cities, which were most seriously affected by the disaster, the emergency management office of Guangdong province said.

However, farmers are complaining they haven't yet been able to receive the financial assistance or discounted loans, the Guangzhou-based Southern Village Daily reported yesterday.

In Deqing county of Zhaoqing, the local government announced it would provide 50 million yuan to grant 20-percent-discounted loans to orange farmers.

But many farmers failed to obtain the loans, because banks said that they needed time to investigate their losses.

"It is the season for fertilizing; we will face more serious losses if we can't get money in time," He Wei, a farmer who lost more than 1,000 kg of oranges to the blizzard, said.

Few farmers had purchased insurance for their harvests, making it more difficult to cope with the losses.

Guangdong Association of Insurance Industry's statistics show insurance firms in the province have paid about 90 million yuan to cover losses during and after the disaster, just 4.1 million yuan of which went to the agriculture sector.

Many farmers in Gaoyao, Fogang, Deqing, and Yangchun had invested a lot of money in their orange orchards.

The Southern Village Daily said at least five farmers have committed suicide because they could not endure the great losses.

Four years ago, Li Xiaoyi's family invested 80,000 yuan in its orange plantation, which has more than 600 orange trees.

This winter was to be their second harvest, but due to the freezing weather they lost at least 20,000 kg of oranges.

Li's father committed suicide by drinking pesticide last month.

The provincial government yesterday denied the reports that the five farmers had committed suicide because of their inability to cope with the losses.

(China Daily March 26 2008)