Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

Five months ago, one of China's leading pork analysts vociferously denied making a dire prediction that Chinese hog prices would crash during 2026. Prices are now tumbling to levels unseen in decades, and the bearish prediction he had disavowed now appears to have been more or less accurate. Why did he disown a bearish forecast? What does this incident say about the China dream of AI-driven agriculture?  On November 24, 2025, long-time Chinese hog analyst Feng Yonghui posted an article on his soozhu.com web site denying that he had predicted that hog prices would fall below RMB 10-to-11 per kg and stay there during 2026. Mr. Feng disavowed the bearish forecast, calling it a "malicious spreading of rumors."  He blamed an artificial intelligence algorithm for splicing together comments he had made out of context and constructing a misleading assessment that tarnished his reputation.  Five months later, on March 23, Mr. Feng's site reported that hog prices h...

Huawei and ChemChina are key players in building an agricultural industry based on technological innovation, according to China's agriculture minister. In November, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs website featured visits by Minister Han Changfu to Beijing research centers operated by the two companies to tout China's hope for technology to overcome challenges such as pest pressures, increasingly scarce and unreliable workers, and chaotic supply chains. Han Changfu visits Syngenta research center. Photo: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Minister Han first visited a plant-breeding lab and greenhouse at a Beijing research center operated by Syngenta, the Swiss seed and agrochemical giant acquired by the State-owned China National Chemical Corporation, aka ChemChina in 2016--China's biggest-ever overseas acquisition. According to the article, Syngenta's resources have been integrated into Chinese agriculture since it was acquired by ChemChi...

Chinese high-tech companies' experimentation with factory-style approaches to pig-farming are getting an extra boost as China grapples with African swine fever, a deadly virus that is roiling the country's massive pork industry. Feed company New Hope Group has a plan to increase its swine production ten-fold in four years, and competitor DBN plans to boost production to 10 million head by 2021--up from 1.68 million head in 2018. Alibaba and Netease are incorporating digital technology into pig farming. One company has gained attention for its complex of high-rise "pig hotels" deep in the mountains of Guangxi Province that have attracted dozens of foreign journalists, industry experts and politicians since they were constructed in 2017. The company's latest publicity scheme invited a group of scientists from Chinese research institutes and universities to conduct a "scientific assessment" of their high-rise high-tech pig complex this month . Pig f...

China has announced ambitious plans for international cooperation in agriculture that aims to create a new world order in agricultural production, technology, and international trade. " Vision and Action for Building 'One Belt One Road' Agricultural Cooperation ," appeared in its  Farmers Daily  newspaper with authorship attributed to the Ministry of Agriculture, National Development and Reform Commission, and China's State Council. It was posted May 12, 2017, just in time for the "One Belt, One Road" to be held in Beijing May 14-15 with dozens of world leaders in attendance. "One Belt One Road" is China's initiative to revive ancient trade routes between Asia and Europe, and which also run through poor countries in Asia and Africa. In addition to building railways and other logistic infrastructure and investing in factories, China hopes to take the lead in sharing its successful experience in agriculture with the "belt road" co...

China is gearing up for more outbound investment in agriculture and scientific cooperation. China's five-year plan for the rural economy includes four paragraphs on "coordinated utilization of domestic and foreign markets and resources" tucked away among the ambitious initiatives for a makeover of the countryside. The paragraphs have diverse objectives to project China's influence abroad along the "new silk road," create world-beating agribusiness companies to supply China's food needs, gain more control over the flow of imports, and boost China's exports of horticultural crops and aquaculture products. China wants to have more and better international cooperation with everybody in agricultural science to get the best technology and project its influence in the developing world. The plan calls for "deepening" cooperation with "neighboring countries," Africa, Latin America, and central and eastern Europe--with a focus on the ...

Press "ctrl-alt-del" to reboot agriculture in China. The country's leaders have ambitions to vault the industry from medieval peasant-style farming into 21st century "Agricultre 4.0" of wired-up fields, warehouses, trucks, and retail platforms. On December 15, a ceremony was held in Beijing to launch an alliance to promote wired-up agricultural business in China. The association has the clunky name of "China Agricultural Product Internet of Things Innovation Alliance" (中国农产品物联商务创新联盟) and it consists of government offices, companies, educational and financial institutions engaged in "smart" agriculture and e-commerce. The "Internet of Things" involves the use of sensors, GPS, gauges, thermometers, and other gadgets in fields, tractors, drones, greenhouses, trucks, and warehouses to collect information on environmental conditions, plants, animals, and produce. The data can be transmitted, stored, compiled and analyzed to apply wa...

China has announced a new strategy for food security that emphasizes potential production instead of actual production. The new strategy for the 13th five-year plan has a slogan that translates roughly as "land as a storehouse, technology as a storehouse." The strategy calls for idling stressed land to restore its fertility and for relying on technology to produce more from the land. The strategy was announced in a document entitled "Xi Jinping's Fourteen Strategies for the 13th Five-year Plan." The propaganda article for cadres to study mentions Xi's name ten times -- mostly quotations from him -- and includes four photos of him visiting agricultural areas. Xi explains that feeding 1.3 billion people is a huge task that China has to do mainly by itself: "China's food bowl must remain firmly in its own hands." Feeding the population is a crucial test of good governance, Xi further explained. Xi Jinping seems quite pleased with this ...

At a recent meeting of China's livestock industry association, a Ministry of Agriculture official proclaimed that the industry faces seven challenges as it enters a critical period of upgrading. Vice Director Wang Zongli of the Ministry's livestock industry office offers a candid assessment of the livestock industry that mostly echoes the party line of upgrading and modernizing agriculture. His first challenge is the "tight supply-demand balance" for Chinese livestock products. He says improvements in living standards, urbanization, and population growth are boosting demand for livestock products. Production of livestock is outstripping the country's water, land and feed resources. Wang highlights an insufficient supply of high-protein feeds, reflected by soybean imports which surged to 63 mmt during 2013 and accounted for 80% of the Chinese soybean supply. He says the growth rate of livestock has accelerated, putting more and more pressure on supply. Challen...

Does it make sense for Internet companies to raise pigs? Can innovative "Internet thinking" contribute to solving China's agricultural and food safety problems? While many presume that IT tycoons can easily find solutions in a seemingly simple business like pig-farming, the reality is that raising pigs is more complex than creating a web site. In 2009, the CEO of Netease, one of China's top Internet companies, announced a plan to launch an innovative pig farm which would allow customers to track the complete production process of the pork they buy. Nearly 5 years later, the project hasn't produced any pork. Netease pigs are making slow progress. A Southern Metropolitan News reporter visited the farm and interviewed the current director of Netease's agriculture project as well as former executives of the company. At the 2009 meeting of the Guangdong Peoples Congress where he was a delegate, Netease CEO Ding Lei announced his plan to apply science and t...

China's latest plan for agriculture is to substitute big data and artificial control for traditional farming methods. On January 10, Vice Minister of Agriculture Yu Xinrong announced the launch of regional pilot "Internet of things agriculture projects."  The "Internet of things" (物联网) is the network of gadgets and sensors that are connected through the Internet, collect and compile vast amounts of data and can be controlled remotely from computers or mobile phones. Applications are mainly for remote-controlled greenhouses, animal traceability systems, and monitoring of transportation and storage facilities. System design for Internet of Things in agriculture and logistics. The pilot projects are in Tianjin, Shanghai, and Anhui. Mr. Yu made the announcement during a trip to Shanghai where he visited the Bio-tag Ltd. Co. which makes electronic tags for animals, the Shanghai Infrastructure Agriculture Internet of Things Base, a vegetable company, the Shan...

Since 2004, China's central authorities have annually issued a "Number 1 Document" stating rural policy priorities for the year. These documents state general policy directions for agriculture with few specifics. Each one tends to emphasize a different theme. This year's "Number 1 Document" covers a lot of different topics and doesn't seem to contain anything new, but its chief emphasis is on technology and "innovation." Innovation ( 创新 ) is a word thrown around a lot in China but it's not clear what it means. The document's title is (loosely translated), "Ideas on Pushing Forward Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation to Continue Increasing Agricultural Production Capacity." Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu, commenting on the document, said that agricultural science and technology is indispensable, noting that S&T accounted for 54.5% of growth in agricultural output. The document starts off by emphasizing p...

Conservation tillage is one of the new techniques Chinese agricultural officials are encouraging farmers to use in order control soil erosion and improve productivity. In September, the Agricultural Machinery Department of Donggang District (Rizhao in eastern Shandong) held a conservation tillage meeting at Xihu Town’s Dahuaya Village to promote fall conservation tillage in the district. Donggang District began disseminating conservation tillage techniques in 2007 and after three years there are 5000 mu of model farms that influence the surrounding 20,000 mu. Demonstrating conservation tillage Techniques include no-till and minimum-tillage, utilizing organic matter from stalks, leaving corn stubble residue as a ground cover, mechanical sub-soiling, and pest control methods. By reducing the amount of ploughing and leaving residue on the surface, wind and water erosion is reduced and more moisture is retained in the soil. This helps crops during times of drought. According to the articl...

The mantra of China's current administration is "scientific development." The implicit assumption is that all problems can be solved by science and technology. And it has to be Chinese technology, not from Dupont, Monsanto, Pioneer, or some other foreign company. This week, China's Ministry of Agriculture is trumpeting its ambitions to be a leader in science and technology. On October 26, a meeting on national agricultural science and technology innovation and dissemination work. The Minister of Agriculture, Sun Zhengcai, said China will strive to become a world leader in agricultural science and technology in the next 10 years or so, relying on science and technology with "Chinese characteristics" suited to the special situation of the country and the industry. The speech calls for support for creating agricultural innovations that increase the productive capacity of agriculture. An interesting phrase is the reference to independent innovation--not sure wh...

In a ceremony July 26, plans for China’s first “vegetable factory” were unveiled . The vignette is a good example of China’s emphasis on high technology and the cozy relationship between government and business. Moreover, the incongruous the pairing of “factory farming” and organic agriculture is out of step with the Western organic agriculture movement. Products from projects like this are ending up in your “organic” food products, undermining the whole concept and prompting a turn toward “local” food. Beijing Zhonghuan Yida Horticulture Sci-tech Ltd. Co and Shenyang Liangma Group LLC signed an agreement to create China’s first “vegetable factory” in Xiaohan village. According to the agreement, Shenyang Liangma will invest 200 million yuan to build the factory and Beijing Zhonghuan will supply advanced technologies over a ten-year period. At the ceremony, Mr. Liu, vice-president of the Academy said the institute is looking for ways to disseminate its research accomplishments through p...