Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

An article in Zhejiang Online discusses the controversial introduction of genetically modified rice and corn varieties. The article says, "According to a February 25 Youth Times (Qingnian Shibao) report, genetically modified rice and corn varieties quietly passed national safety certification at the end of 2009, meaning that these products will soon end up on our citizens’ tables." The article says the public's attention was grabbed by the government's prominent support voiced in its "No. 1 Document" released this month which said, "Advance the industrialization of new genetically modified varieties using scientific assessment, on the basis of management according to law." The new varieties are resistant to rice borers. They were created by inserting into the rice plant a toxic protein which kills the insects when they eat it. Tu Yumin, now a professor at Zhejiang University's crop science research institute, spent over a decade developing th...

Probably the corn seeds were inadvertently mixed in with the soybeans, but it's possible someone was trying to import them illegally. Translation of news article : "[On January 11, 2010], the Binzhou [Shandong] branch of the Inspection and Quarantine Bureau found corn seed in a shipment of U.S. soybeans. Testing confirmed that the seed was genetically modified. Material from this shipment of soybeans has been destroyed according to regulations." "It was learned that this was the first time genetically modified corn seeds were intercepted in soybean shipments by the Binzhou bureau. If this genetically modified seed entered China it could carry diseases like bacterial wilt, maize downy mildew, maize chlorotic mottle virus that could have serious effects on our country’s corn production. Binzhou Inspection and Quarantine Bureau activated contingency plans, carrying out strict quarantine and supervision of four companies in the region that import soybeans to prevent outb...

In the wake of the latest melamine contamination revelations, China's State Council issued revised regulations to tighten control over the feed and feed additives industry. The new regulations were released for public comment February 20. Comments are due by March 15. An opinion piece appearing on Chinese web sites describes the context for the regulations and complains that the State Council is using the melamine incident as an excuse to freeze foreign competitors out of the Chinese feed market. The regulations mainly tighten up the regulation and monitoring of feed products, but they include a provision requiring foreign feed companies to sell in China through local branches or agents. This appears to backtrack from China's WTO commitment to allow foreign companies to compete in domestic commerce on the same footing as domestic firms. The opinion piece states that the reason for the regulations is the adulteration of milk products with melamine. The author attributes the pr...

This is a feel-good human interest story for the Chinese New Year holiday from a small-city newspaper that offers a window into the life of a rural migrant/entrepreneur. I was looking for something else when this story caught my attention. Mr. Ding's photo from the Shangqiu Daily Newspaper Mr. Ding Ximai was born in a village in Gansu Province. He's a member of the Hui ethnic minority--a Chinese muslim whose ancestors may have come across the silk road from the middle east centuries ago. At the age of 14, having finished primary school he faced grim prospects in an area where each family has an average of one mu of land per person (1/6 acre) and there are few other jobs. Like many others in his village, he left for Lanzhou, the provincial capital. Lanzhou is known for its "pulled noodles" usually served with beef. He got a job washing dishes in a noodle shop and after a year took off to wander the country as a purveyor of the famous Lanzhou pulled beef noodles, openin...

On February 6, China released a communique reporting results from its first "pollution census" conducted jointly by the Ministries of Environmental Protection, Agriculture, and National Bureau of Statistics. As a number of journalists have reported, the census is the first estimate of emissions that includes agriculture and shows that agriculture creates more pollution than industry. There has been a lot of effort to bring industrial emissions under control in recent years, but agriculture was mostly ignored as a gigantic silent polluter. Environmental protection reports have been saying this for a while, but these are the first statistics showing this. I pieced together data from different sections of the report to create the chart below showing sources of water pollution, measured by COD (chemical oxygen demand) emissions in metric tons. By this measure, agriculture is the biggest polluter, accounting for 42% of emissions. Processing and manufacturing industries (ag process...

In recent years there have been a number of local government experiments in setting up rural land exchanges. The exchanges allow farmers to transfer the rights to operate their land (but not sell it). County governments have three-level systems that consist of a physical land exchange—a room in an office building with a big LED screen on the wall, a web site, database, and maybe a touch screen. Townships have land exchange offices and villages have an official in charge of collecting information from farmers who want to transfer their land. Chengdu Scientific Land Ltd. Co. is an interesting private venture in the communist party-dominated rural land brokerage business. The company was started last year by four recent graduates of Southwest Minorities University. The company set up a web site, Tuliu.com , which lists parcels of land and people and companies seeking land all over the country. The site lists dozens of parcels, showing the location, type of land, length of contract, desir...

Below is a translation of " A letter to dairy farmers nationwide " issued by the Ministry of Agriculture Press Office. The context: starting in September 2008 the melamine crisis rocked the industry. The Ministry of Agriculture worked hard to deal with the crisis. Just when things seemed to be back to normal, the melamine crisis reappeared in the last two months, as several companies were caught selling melamine-tainted milk powder that should have been destroyed. Dairy farmers themselves were not directly implicated in the melamine problem, but they probably played a role. The rectification policies require farmers to use "modern" techniques, etc. This letter is an interesting example of Confucianism in China's current government/party. It reassures farmers that their leaders are doing all they can to help them while appealing to the farmers' sense of duty to follow the rules so everyone will benefit. The dairy industry is an example of how the central auth...

China's "Number 1 Document" for this year--the seventh year in a row that it has focused on rural issues--portrays a very ambitious plan for addressing rural problems. It goes on for pages and pages and covers agricultural markets, science and technology, seed companies, rural finance, land, cooperatives and agribusinesses, harmonizing rural and urban development and much more. Chinese authorities published the graphic below (probably available as full-color poster to decorate communist party office walls nationwide) as a summary of rural policies for 2010. Rural policies have been whittled down to 27 points divided into five sections. Each point represents a whole set of policies, pilot programs, and subsidies. I think this corresponds to the Number 1 document's organization. A translation is below. 2010 Central No. 1 Document Five-sided Solution to New “Three Rural” Issues I. Establish and strengthen a complete rural policy system, mobilize rural resources 1. Conti...

A Xinhua News Agency release says that this year's agricultural subsidies will be 86.7 billion yuan (about $12.75 billion). This includes 15.1 billion yuan for direct subsidies to grain farmers and 71.6 billion yuan for the general input subsidy. This doesn't seem to include the other two major subsidy programs--machinery and fine seed subsidies--which are expected to increase. Peoples Daily says the central finance grain direct subsidy, input subsidy, machinery subsidy, and fine seed subsidy totaled 123.1 billion yuan last year, an increase of 19.4%. The Ministry of Finance requires local governments to get the subsidies to farmers quickly (usually by April 1--before planting), supervise the process closely, and fine tune methods for distributing the payments. Peoples Daily announces this year's greater support for farmers included in the No. 1 document that was made public this week. Last year central financial authorities allocated 716 billion yuan ($105 billion) for ...

Police in Shaanxi Province have announced the results of their investigation of how some melamine-tainted milk powder spread across the country last year. They have jailed three suspects (a fourth had a heart attack) and claim to have destroyed the powder that they tracked down. Some powder was sold to consumers in Shaanxi in 2008 and some candy made last year with tainted powder in southern China has been recalled. The Public Security Bureau of Shaanxi Province held a press conference in Weinan, a northwestern region of China, to announce the results of the investigation (and reassure the public). They laid out a complex trail of purchases and sales that originated in Weinan, led to candy factories in southern China and ultimately to stores in northeastern provinces. The chain of events started with 30 tons of milk powder produced by the Lihua dairy company in Dali county between April and August 2008. -They sold 20 tons to an individual named Ma Shuanglin. Authorities found that Lihu...