Skip to main content

Army Worm Battle Heats Up in 2013

On July 2, 2013, China's Ministry of Agriculture issued an emergency notice to step up efforts to control the spread of army worms, a caterpillar that affects corn and other crops.

A Jilin Province corn field in September 2012 where army worms 
stripped lower leaves off the stalks. The corn cobs are left intact.

Army worms appear during the hot summer months of July and August and strip the leaves off corn stalks. In 2012, an unusually  large infestation attacked large areas of China's corn crop. The 2013 emergency notice warned that many areas of northeast and north China and the Huang-Huai region have a high risk of infestation by second- and third-generation army worms. The notice warned that army worms tend to migrate as a group and an infestation can develop rapidly. Local officials were told to watch migratory patterns and to be on the lookout for hidden or unexpected army worm risks. Officials were urged to do a good job on weekly reporting of pest problems and organizing prevention and control teams.

The battle against bugs like army worms in China usually includes swarms of farmers sent out to drench fields with pesticides. The collateral damage that results is implied by the emergency notice which exhorted local officials to "scientifically" use effective, low-toxicity pesticides and to use a "green" mentality in pest control. Apparently, many farmers were poisoned pesticides during the previous year's army worm control campaign. The 2013 emergency notice warns readers to "learn a lesson from last year's farmer poisonings and heat stroke in many areas."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Xi Jinping's Doctoral Thesis

Xi Jinping is the vice president and presumed next president of China but little is known about him. In this post the dimsums blog offers its contribution to the genre of Xi Jinping-ology by conveying Xi's decade-old views on agricultural markets. Ten years ago Xi Jinping wrote a thesis, "Tentative Study of Agricultural Marketization" (中国农村市场化研究) for a Doctor of Law degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a top breeding-ground for Chinese officials. The dimsums blogger has spent several hours poring over the 200-plus page tome to see what it reveals about Dr. Xi. The thesis is remarkably close to what China has been doing lately in agricultural policy, suggesting that Xi (or the person who actually wrote the thesis) has a major say in policy or is at least in agreement with what's being done. There is nothing adventurous, controversial (or insightful) in the thesis. It seems to be the work of a wonkish technocrat who is not prone to talk out of turn or wander from...
15 comments
Read more

Divergence in U.S. & Chinese egg prices

High egg prices are a hot topic in the United States. China, in contrast, has a glut of eggs and depressed prices.  The March 14, 2025 USDA Agricultural Marketing Service weekly eggs market overview reported that U.S. egg prices continued declining during the second week of March as the supply situation improved. No significant highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreaks have occurred in March and U.S. egg demand is relatively light. The average U.S. wholesale price for Grade A large white eggs was $4.15 per dozen, down sharply from their February peak.  Until 2021, Chinese and U.S. wholesale egg prices had been roughly equal at about $1-to-$2 per dozen with no trend. U.S. prices fluctuated more than Chinese prices, so the U.S. price was sometimes higher, sometimes lower than the Chinese price after converting them to dollars per dozen.  Chinese prices converted using monthly exchange rate and assuming 0.6 kg per dozen. Sources: USDA and China Ministry of Agricult...
Post a Comment
Read more

China's Corn & Wheat Imports Down 97% From Last Year

China's first customs data for 2025 feature a 97-percent decline in corn and wheat imports from a year earlier. Soybean imports were up slightly by volume (but down in value), and dairy, pork, poultry, and seafood imports rebounded year-on-year. Life was less sweet in China with a 93.7% decline in sugar imports, and drinking appears to be up as wine and beer imports posted gains.   China's agricultural imports for January-February 2025 were down 14.7 percent from a year earlier. The value of farm and food goods imported for the first two months of 2025 totaled $30.7 billion, down $5.26 billion from the same period in 2024. China's exports of agricultural products during January-February totaled $15.2 billion, up $393 million from a year earlier.  Data from China Customs Administration website. As usual, soybeans were the largest component of China's agricultural imports during January-February 2025 with a value of $6.3 billion. Meat imports were valued at $4.1 billion, ...
2 comments
Read more