Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

China is on alert for the impending spread of the COVID-19 virus in the countryside. A December 24 videoconference on rural COVID-19 prevention and control ordered officials to be on the alert to fight the spread of the virus in rural areas expected as millions of people return to their home towns during the January holidays.  Today's Securities Times reported  that the virus was spreading rapidly in late December. An online survey conducted by provincial disease control authorities showed that 35% of Hainan Province's population was infected during the week of December 19-25, up from 5.6% the previous week. Hainan authorities expect the infection rate to reach 50%. Various cities in Zhejiang Province had infection rates of 30%-to-40%, and Sichuan Province estimated its infection rate at 64.5% during the last week of December 2022. Officials at the December 24 meeting were warned that the countryside is a weak spot for virus control due to the vast population with low vaccina...

On December 18, China's central television network (CCTV) revealed that some farms use as many as 20 different drugs to raise chickens, and some use excessive doses or banned drugs. This incident again shines a light on pervasive food safety problems in China as the country adopts an industrialized food system. Laws, regulations, and certifications present on paper are routinely flouted and there is seemingly no effective mechanism that can assure final consumers that their food is safe to eat. The main revelation of the CCTV report was that farms in several locations of Shandong Province violated regulations that require farms to stop feeding drugs to chickens 7 days prior to slaughter. The chickens were delivered to local slaughterhouses of big poultry meat companies, Liuhe and Wintech, which supplied fast food chains like KFC and McDonalds. A cartoon from a Chinese commentary  mocking the use of drugs for raising chicken: "Chicken 'famine'" The farm...

China has managed to fill peoples' stomachs, but many people don't get enough vitamins and minerals. Over the past decade, China's leadership embarked on the next stage in food policy by formulating plans to improve the population's diet quality. There has been a national nutritional improvement project since 1995. In 2001, an “Outline for China’s Food and Nutrition Development for 2001-2010” was formulated and a National Nutritional Improvement and Development Center was set up under the powerful National Development and Reform Commission. [Ironically, my computer detected a virus when I visited the nutrition center's web site just now...computer health is a separate issue...] Wen Jiabao launched an “Advance Public Nutrition Improvement Activity” in 2006 as part of the 11th five-year plan. According to an interview with a Professor Yu Xiaodong on the nutrition improvement center's web site , the Chinese public generally lacks iron, zinc, and calcium, vitamins A...