Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

On August 30, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs confirmed that African Swine Fever (ASF) was the cause of illness and death in a herd of 459 pigs on a farm in Anhui Province's Wuhu municipality. Testing was conducted by the National Animal Disease Control Center after 80 pigs on the farm died and 185 became ill from unknown causes. All pigs on the farm have now been culled and emergency measures have been taken to prevent stop movement of pigs out of the area. The ASF outbreak in Anhui Province is China's fifth confirmed this month. The disease was first discovered August 1 on a farm in the northeastern city of Shenyang. Since then the disease has been discovered in widely scattered locations: in a load of pigs arriving at a slaughterhouse in Zhengzhou, and at farms in Jiangsu Province's Lianyungang municipality, in Zhejiang Province's Wenzhou, and now in Anhui Province's Wuhu municipality. Occurrences of African Swine Fever confirmed in Ch...

The Chinese Government has turned up the volume on its food security propaganda this month as the country faces shrinking output of major farm commodities while the United States and Brazil are turning out monster crops.  On August 24, the chief of the National Bureau of Statistics rural office issued a proclamation that national grain production is basically doing well . Noting that the issue of maintaining the food supply for more than 1.3 billion people is a "first class issue" for governing the nation, he recited the creed of the necessity of relying on domestic production in a new era with changes in the agricultural sector. The same day, the chief statistician from the same office explained that their estimate of a 4.3-percent decline in this year's early rice crop is not a concern since the country's inventory of rice is relatively large. On August 27, a spokesperson for the Administration of Grain and Commodity Reserves assured listeners that the plumme...

Trade in smuggled meat keeps some restaurant operators in business, according to an August 10 report by China's Ban Yue Tan ( Comment ) online magazine. China's small restaurant owners and processors struggling to remain profitable may be the most vulnerable to China's tariffs on imports from the United States. As tariffs rise higher, the incentive to smuggle is increased proportionately and China's customs authorities say they are cracking down (again). The Comment reporter said most of the 40 merchants he interviewed in two wholesale meat markets in Chongqing--a major hub of commerce in southwest China--sold both legal and smuggled frozen meat products. Smuggled products included frozen pork, beef and poultry. Vendors asked the Comment reporter, "Do you want [meat] with a certificate or without? It's much cheaper without a certificate." The product without certificates was smuggled meat that lacked import clearances and inspection documents. Th...

Chinese authorities appear to be chasing African Swine Fever around the country as a new discovery of the virus was confirmed today by China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs 750 miles south of where the first cases were reported two weeks ago.  On August 14, 30 dead pigs and 30 sick pigs were discovered in a truck carrying 260 pigs when it arrived at a slaughter facility in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. Today, tests by China's national animal disease center confirmed that African Swine Fever (ASF) was the cause of the illness and death.  Inspection and quarantine documents showed that the truckload of ASF-infected pigs discovered in Zhengzhou originated from a market in Heli Town, located in the Jiamusi district of Heilongjiang Province, about 1,350 miles northeast of Zhengzhou. Jiamusi is in the eastern part of Heilongjiang where authorities had been conducting surveillance earlier this year to watch for ASF in wild pigs. The new discovery of the highly...

China reported its first outbreak of African Swine Fever last week despite over a decade of preparations to block the virus from entering the country. The virus appears to have made a vast intercontinental leap to Eastern China that parallels China's "Belt and Road," raising the possibility that China's new trade links may also create new vectors for the spread of disease. On August 3 the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced  China's first outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) on a farm on the outskirts of Shenyang in northeastern China. Officials said 47 pigs had died from suspected ASF infection on a 383-head pig farm in Shenyang's Shenbei New District. Officials announced they had culled over 900 pigs in the area to prevent spread of the disease. Yesterday--4 days after the outbreak--communist party news media  declared that the ASF outbreak has been brought under control . The virus is endemic in most African countries. It jumped to the ...

Preventing impacts on meat production is the main concern regarding soybeans in the trade war with the United States, the former president of China Agriculture University said last week. In an article issued by Farmers Daily , a Ministry of Agriculture-controlled paper , former Ag University President (and ag economist) Ke Bingsheng said China faces a choice of stopping soybean imports from the U.S. or continuing to import them after assessing a 25% tariff. If China were to stop buying U.S. soybeans, it would be left with a 10-to-20-million-ton deficit since other countries could not increase exports enough to replace U.S. soybeans. If China continues importing U.S. soybeans the imports will be more expensive due to the 25% tax, Professor Ke said. The tax would affect consumer prices by raising the cost of soybean meal which would, in turn, raise the price of meat, according to Prof. Ke. He said Chinese experts estimate the effect on China's CPI would be 0.1% and no more than 0.4...