Feeding the animals so that the party members get fed, if there is a food crisis developing.
If they’ve got some kind of mildew or fungus from the floods, then it won’t be fit for human consumption anyway. So cutting it early for animal feed before it’s contaminated any further is the right move.
One thing I know for sure is that farmers in the field, even Chinese ones, know more about what to do than any reporter or government flunky does.