Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

An online commentator complained that China's pig farmers are dangerously irresponsible when it comes to pollution issues. The commentator visited a relative in the countryside who started raising pigs a couple years ago. With prices at record-high levels last year, the relative was pleased that he had earned a lot of money. During his visit, the commentator noticed there were many pig farms, and quite a few dumped manure into the small river that runs through the village. Knowing that China has been enforcing regulations to protect the environment by banning or limiting pigs in designated districts, the commentator asked his relative if he was under pressure. "What pressure?" the puzzled pig farmer replied. The city relative clarified: "Pressure from environmental protection?" The pig-farmer scoffed at the question. "Environmental protection has nothing to do with me. None of the villages around here are in districts that ban pig-farming,"...

Chinese propagandists are using pseudo-scientific testing to undermine consumers' confidence in foreign infant formula. On September 6-7, 2017, a Chinese Central TV (CCTV) "Consumer Advocate" program announced that 66 percent of foreign infant formula brands failed to meet Chinese standards, while all domestic brands passed the tests. News reports that Japanese and U.S. brands failed the tests were repackaged with the title "These Foreign Milk Powders Might Not Meet Standards; Does Your Family Buy Them?" and posted on dozens of Chinese web sites, such as the communist party's "red net" . A commentary on the nationalist Global Times web site followed up with, " Lesson from Chinese Milk Powder Counterattack ," describing the testing results as the Chinese infant formula's "Normandy invasion," a sign that the industry has recovered from its 2008 melamine crisis "Dunkirk." CCTV announced that 66% of infant for...

Chinese authorities have set ambitious goals for biofuel use that call for nationwide use of fuel ethanol in automotive gasoline by 2020, scaling up of cellulosic ethanol production by 2025, and attaining a world-leading position in biofuels. The plan entails quintupling ethanol production in three years, and implies that China's history of non-grain biofuel flops will be reversed. The " Implementation program for promotion of biofuels and expansion of bio-ethanol as automotive fuel " jointly issued by 15 Chinese ministries and commissions, led by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Energy Bureau on September 13, 2017 was described as having "great practical and strategic significance." By 2020, automotive use of bio-ethanol fuel will be expanded nationwide from the handful of pilot provinces currently using it. The document also urges development of cellulosic ethanol and advanced biofuels to achieve a world-leading position in biofuels by ...

China is expanding subsidies for crop rotations and land-idling to rehabilitate degraded farmland and conserve moisture in marginal agricultural areas. At a press conference last week , a Ministry of Agriculture spokesman explained the program --a continuation of a plan initiated in 2016. The spokesman explained that intensive use of farmland has degraded the quality of land and resulted in pollution. The exploratory pilot program aims to establish a rotation and fallowing system within 3-to-5 years that will restore fertility and reduce environmental degradation. The 2017 rotation and fallow pilot program covers 12 million mu in 9 province and 192 counties--5.84 million mu more than last year. This year's program will be supported by 2.56 billion yuan in central government funding, nearly twice as much as last year. The funding will be used to compensate farmers for reduced income while land is idle and to cover the cost of officials administering the program. The farmland ro...

The 2016 soybean subsidy is 118.58 yuan per mu for China's Heilongjiang Province, China's top soybean-producing province, according the Heilongjiang Price Bureau . This payment--based on the soybean crop produced last fall--is paid out as part of the target price subsidy program which has operated on a pilot basis from 2014 to 2016. Funds will be issued to county finance departments and state farm bureaus in the province and paid to farmers by September 15, 2017 (nearly a year after the crop was harvested, and 5 months after this year's crop was planted). The subsidy equals roughly $111 per acre when converted to U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate. The amount is consistent with previous reports of 120 yuan/mu. The target price subsidy was 150 yuan/mu in 2015. The target price subsidy equals approximately 28 percent of the crop's gross value. (With an average yield of 120 kg/mu and average price of 3.6 yuan/kg, the gross value of the 2016 crop was about 420 y...

China's approach to "precise poverty alleviation" focuses on starting up industry chains to pull poor people out of poverty, both at home and abroad. At first glance, the " International Symposium on Donkey Industry Development " held last month in Shandong's Dong'e County sounds like a joke to those of us unaware of the value of donkeys, but it was quite a serious occasion with millions of dollars at stake.   Online Donkey Exchange kick-off held in December 2016. The online donkey exchange set up in the same city last December --the first online donkey trading platform in China!--also sounds like a satirical article from The Onion , but it also is a serious venture. This "Internet + Donkey" model aims to bring the little fellows into the era of "big data", with an expectation of 300 donkeys traded daily and eventually becoming a center for global donkey trade. "Revitalizing the Chinese donkey industry is our respon...

213,000 livestock farm closures during the first half of 2017 were featured in a news conference held by China's Ministry of Environmental Protection last month that reported progress on a “Water Pollution Prevention Action Plan.” Local authorities across China have been ordered to designate zones where livestock farms are banned, where they are limited, and zones suitable for livestock farms. Commercial-scale farms must close or move out of the zones where they are banned--near bodies of water, drinking water sources, residential communities, and scenic areas. If they want to continue operating, farms must invest in facilities to collect animal waste, re-use waste water, and utilize manure for biogas and organic fertilizer. According to a report on the news conference by the China Livestock Farming Alliance , 49,000 livestock-farming-ban zones covering 636,000 square km have been designated nationwide. So far this year 213,000 livestock and poultry farms have been closed or ...