Video: Chinese farmers destroy crops amid raging anti-Covid protests

Because travel is banned through several rural areas in China, farmers are struggle to sell their harvest. (Image credit: Screengrab from video tweeted by @zhanglifan)

A large section of farmers in China has taken to destroying their crops, blaming the strict COVID-19 curbs for not letting them sell their crops. The farmers’ move has sparked concerns of food security.

Because travel is banned through several rural areas in the country, farmers are struggle to sell their harvest, local media reported. Reports say that farmers in the Chinese provinces of Henan, Gansu, Shandong and Hebei are bulldozing vegetable fields in order to sow seeds for the next crop.

A video showed a farmer running a tractor through a line of vegetable cultivation. Another farmer was seen plucking his produce and throwing it.

China is the last major economy still attempting to stamp out the domestic spread of coronavirus with snap lockdowns, lengthy quarantines and mass testing campaigns.

Hundreds of people took to the streets in Beijing and Shanghai on Sunday to protest against China's zero-Covid policy in a rare outpouring of public anger against the state. The protests turned out to be China’s biggest demonstrations since pro-democracy rallies in 1989 were crushed.

A deadly fire in the Xinjiang region on Thursday served as the catalyst for the public anger, with many blaming virus lockdowns for hampering the rescue effort.

Last week, hundreds of workers at Foxconn in China, where the world’s biggest Apple’s biggest factory is, protested, breaking out of their dorms and clashing with the police.

China, the world’s most populous country, reported 40,052 COVID-19 cases on Monday, a record high but tiny compared to caseloads in the West at the height of the pandemic.