Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

Chinese officials admitted that thousands of people were infected with brucellosis last year after bacteria escaped from a vaccine factory in the Gansu Province's Lanzhou City, but the official story still has some loose ends that raise questions. News media such as CNN are reporting the story spun by official Chinese news media : that the Lanzhou Health Commission confirmed 3,245 people contracted brucellosis and an additional 1,401 have tested positive. The infections were attributed to bacteria that drifted from a vaccine factory's exhaust to a nearby veterinary research institute. The factory was blamed for using disinfectant that was past its use-by date. Some infections occurred more than a year ago--in July-August 2019--but the crisis peaked and was first publicized in December 2019.  Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that primarily affects livestock. It is not known to be transmissible from human to human. Brucellosis can have debilitating effects on humans if not tre...

The Agricultural Trade Promotion Center of China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs reported that China's agricultural imports for January-July 2020 totaled $96.2 billion, up 13 percent from the same period a year earlier. The increase came despite an economic slowdown and logistics disruptions during this year's covid-19 pandemic. China's agricultural exports totaled $41.9 billion, down 3.3 percent from a year earlier. The Center did not report trade numbers for individual trading partners. Livestock products were the largest component of agricultural imports reported by the Center. The $28.3-billion livestock total exceeded the $23.8-billion value of oilseed imports for the first time. The 42.2-percent increase in livestock import value was stimulated by the country's huge meat supply deficit after last year's African swine fever epidemic decimated China's swine herd. China has a net trade surplus for vegetables and aquatic products, but imports ...

If you're thinking about starting a socialist country, you might want to take note: after 70 years of socialism, China's elite Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has pronounced that,  "the rural collective economy is still at a low level of development [italics added], its development is uneven, and it lacks sustainability and profitability." The comments were made at a Beijing forum on CASS's Rural Development Report in preparation for writing the 14th five-year plan for 2021-25.  The report's unusually candid assessment identified rural problems and "contradictions" that include weak farming incentives, difficulty achieving sustainable income growth, growing divisions within villages, and an aging population. CASS noted that a 135-million-metric-ton shortfall in grain supplies is projected for 2025, rural industry is unprofitable, business financing is inadequate, rural services are lacking, a rural garbage disposal problem is mounting, a...