China-Desperate remedies in the drought.

China has resorted to artificial rainmaking and is diverting water from its two largest rivers to alleviate a drought the government is calling the worst in half a century.

More than 4.4m people and 2.2m cattle face shortages of drinking water across at least eight provinces which contain about half the country’s wheat growing areas, the ministry of water resources said on Sunday.

CHINA-Weather-control officials across the country fired artillery shells and rockets filled with rainmaking chemicals over the weekend while military aircraft were used to seed clouds across northern and central provinces.

The same technology was used to create rain and to clear pollution over Beijing in the weeks preceding last summer’s Olympics.

Water from the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers is being diverted for farm irrigation to battle the drought which began in November and threatens the livelihood of 13.5m people, state media reported.

The ministry of finance said it would accelerate the disbursement of Rmb86.7bn ($12.7bn, €9.8bn, £8.6bn) of annual subsidies for farmers to ensure grain production and support rural incomes.

The government declared a national drought emergency late last week.

Hu Jintao, the president, and Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, ordered a full mobilisation of state resources to ensure a good summer harvest.

Worries about the wheat harvest have been exacerbated after the ministry of agriculture warned on Friday that a highly damaging fungus known as stripe rust was spreading across the country and could devastate wheat crops if it was not brought under control.

The drought and pestilence come just as the agricultural sector is receiving a flood of unemployed rural migrants returning home from the cities.

The government estimates that about 20m migrant workers have returned to their homes in the countryside after losing jobs in the factories, construction sites and restaurants of the wealthy coastal regions as a result of the global economic crisis.

There have been bumper grain harvests in China but in the last week officials have warned that the rural sector will not be immune from the global economic crisis amid falling agricultural prices and falling crop yields. The average rural income in China rose by Rmb621 last year to Rmb4,761 – the fastest nominal increase in farming incomes in history, according to government figures. But officials are expecting that figure to stagnate this year.

In response, Beijing has increased agricultural subsidies and has said it will "reasonably control the import and export of food products" to protect domestic farmers, a promise that food exporters in other countries have warned could signal greater protectionism.