Chinese farmers struggle as scorching drought wilts crops

Hundreds of persimmon trees that should be loaded with yellow fruit lie wilted in Gan Bingdong’s greenhouse in southwestern China, adding to mounting farm losses in a scorching summer that is the country’s driest in six decades.

Gan’s farm south of the industrial metropolis of Chongqing lost half its vegetable crop in heat as high as 41 degrees Celsius (106 Fahrenheit) and a drought that has shrunk the giant Yangtze River and wilted crops across central China.