Su Guoping spent his days helping farmers divert water from wells to parched fields in Kumkuduk, a village on the edge of the Taklimakan Desert in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Su is one 200,000 civil servants sent to Xinjiang's rural areas as part of a program to improve the livelihood of residents.

"Water shortage can affect this year's harvest," said Su, deputy director of the Xinjiang Economic and Information Commission. "There is no time to delay. We must help the farmers."