Permanent Representative of China to UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture attends 40th Session of FAO Conference
A Chinese delegation headed by H.E. Niu Dun, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the People’s Republic of China to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture, attended the 40th Session of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Conference in Rome on 3-8 July 2017.
With the theme of Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security, the 40th Session covered important topics on global food and agriculture governance. Over 1100 delegates from 180 plus countries attended the Session.
In his speech at the Session, Mr. Niu Dun stated that China always attaches great importance to addressing climate change in agriculture, commits itself to a joint endeavor with the international community in the implementation of the Paris Agreement to further agricultural development, rural prosperity and farmer’s well-being. He stressed that China highly values international agricultural cooperation and dedicates to promoting global food security through South-South and Triangular Cooperation. He called on all parties to firm up resolve on the fight against poverty and hunger, build new types of partnership, and shape inclusive and sustainable agricultural growth against mounting global challenges including climate change.
The 40th Session reviewed and endorsed the FAO Programme of Work and Budget 2018-19 and the Proposed Scale of Contributions. China’s share is expected to increase significantly, making China the 3rd largest contributor.
China was successfully re-elected as an FAO Council member at the 40th Session of the Conference and elected as a member of the Finance Committee at the subsequent 157th Session of the Council.
A side event of China-FAO South-South Cooperation: Promoting Inclusive and Sustainable Development was held on 6 July. The event highlighted China’s contribution to SSC and is attended by Mr. Niu Dun, FAO Director-General and ministerial-level officials and ambassadors from nearly 30 countries.
Source: MOA China. Date: 2017-07-13
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China’s CITIC Agri Fund buys Dow corn seed assets for $1.1 billion
A Chinese fund part-owned by congolomerate CITIC Ltd has paid $1.1 billion for some of Dow Chemical Co’s corn seed business in Brazil, in a further sign of China’s fast-expanding role in the global seed sector.
The deal includes seed processing plants and seed research centers, a copy of Dow AgroSciences’ Brazilian corn germplasm bank, the Morgan seed brand and a license for the use of the Dow Sementes brand for a certain period of time, Dow said on Tuesday.
The assets, which generated revenue of about $287 million in 2016, are being sold by Dow to meet conditions set by U.S. antitrust regulators for its $130 billion merger with DuPont.
The deal will boost China’s share of the global seed business, which is being remade by a series of huge mergers.
These include the $43 billion takeover of Swiss firm Syngenta by state-owned Chemchina in China’s largest foreign takeover.
Chemchina said recently it is looking to snap up seed assets that rival Bayer must sell to gain regulatory approval for its takeover of Monsanto.
CITIC Agri Fund was founded in 2016 by CITIC Agriculture, a division of state-backed CITIC Ltd, along with Chinese seed firm Yuan Longping High-Tech Co Ltd and two other listed agricultural companies, according to CITIC Ltd’s 2016 annual report.
CITIC Ltd, China’s largest conglomerate with interests in financial services to real estate and heavy industry, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The company made its first foray into the seed business in 2014, buying a majority stake in Yuan Longping High-Tech, one of China’s leading breeders of hybrid rice.
Yuan Longping High-Tech said that year that it wanted to become one of the world’s top five seed companies.
Dow and DuPont announced the all-stock merger in December 2015.
The two companies won U.S. antitrust approval last month to merge on condition that they sell certain crop protection products and other assets. The European Union also cleared their merger in March.
Dow reaffirmed that the merger deal was expected to close next month, with the intended spin-offs to occur within 18 months of closing.
The companies have said that they would split into three separate companies specializing in material sciences, specialty products, and seeds and agrochemicals upon completion of the merger.
Source: Reuters. Date 2017-07-13
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China: How will fruit & veg prices develop after torrential rains?
In the past month, the whole of China has experienced disastrous rain. Many fruits and vegetables have been destroyed by water, and the produce that is left is of terrible quality. The rain has been falling continuously for a long time now and is expected to continue until August. Up until now, there have not been many hurricanes. The upcoming weather will depend on many uncertain factors.
Drowned cucumbers
Based on the damage in the south, there is no need for worries about the price in the short term for both leafy vegetables and fruit vegetables. Because of the lesser damage in the north, the few products that are mainly produced in this area, such as carrots, potatoes and onions, will not be affected much either. There is a difference in price with other breeds, and this will not change. Overall, products with a good current price will have the opportunity to maintain this price in the short term. Products with a bad price will also stay that way.
Vegetable greenhouses destroyed by heavy rain
When it comes to fruit, between April and June, the low temperatures and heavy rain have severely damaged fruits, such as cherries and waxberries. Especially because of the continuous rain at the end of April, large quantities of cherries have cracked, leaving them tasteless. Over 80% of the produce is damaged. Also, because of the rain at the end of June, waxberries have fallen off and rotted, leaving no harvest.
Banana plantations after heavy rain
Fruits such as plums and peaches are now in their most important growth phase. Looking at the weather, if there is no improvement in management, many plums and peaches will be infected by bacteria. What deserves attention is that Chinese plums will be ready for harvest by the end of June. Any rain could cause the fruit to fall, crack and rot.
Source: Fresh Place. Date 2017-07-13
Belarus gets access for meat exports to China: Belarusian official
Belarus has got the right to supply beef and poultry to China, Belarusian Agriculture and Food Deputy Minister Alexander Subbotin said on Monday.
Subbotin made the remarks to the press prior to the negotiations between Belarusian Agriculture and Food Minister Leonid Zayats and Director of China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine Zhi Shuping.
“Today 21 Belarusian beef manufacturers and 5 poultry factories will be authorized to export products to China”, Subbotin said, adding that 36 Belarusian enterprises had been earlier authorized to sell milk into China.
The deputy minister said that the next step in developing the cooperation with China will be the certification of Belarusian enterprises for the supply of freshwater fish.
For his part, Zhi Shuping described Belarus-China relations as a friendly strategic partnership.
“Belarus-China trade is thriving. We would like to see Belarus’ safe and high-quality products on our market,” he stressed.
Two protocols were signed on permission for deliveries of Belarusian frozen beef and poultry to China, as well as a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in providing safety when importing and exporting food products between China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and Belarus’ Agriculture and Food Ministry.
Source: Xinhua. Date: 2017-07-11
How has e-commerce changed life in rural China?
Every day, Chen Yandong handles dozens of packages for the residents in Gaozhai village in Northwest China’s Gansu province.
From appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners to daily necessities like razors and toothpaste, Chen is amazed by how residents of the remote village make the most of their Internet connections to add convenience to their lives.
“People are happy to get access to good prices and quality products from online vendors,” Chen said.
E-commerce is helping revitalize China’s rural villages, home to half of the country’s population. It has also emerged as a new growth driver for consumer spending in the world’s second largest economy.
China has the world’s largest e-commerce market. As the incomes of rural residents increase, growth in online retail purchases by rural shoppers has outpaced their urban counterparts.
China’s rural residents spent 894.54 billion yuan ($131.47 billion) online in 2016, accounting for 17.4 percent of the nation’s total, according to the Ministry of Commerce.
E-commerce is also opening the doors to the huge rural market for companies and farmers.
Alibaba, which began a rural strategy on its e-commerce platform Taobao in 2014, has set up local service centers in about 30,000 villages across 700 counties to support its e-commerce business and provide delivery services in rural areas.
To meet rising demand, e-commerce giant JD.com is expanding its service center workforce to over 300,000 in rural areas.
Farmers have also raked in handsome profits from selling premium produce online.
Li Chunwang. from Wugong county in Shaanxi province, has set up a cooperative which purchases fruit from farmers and sells it online. Previously it made an annual income around 3 million yuan. In 2016, the number shot up to nearly 300 million yuan.
The city of Donggang in Northeast China’s Liaoning province is well-known for its strawberries. In 2016, more than 80 percent of the city’s strawberries and strawberry-related products were sold online. In the first three months this year, online sales reached 1.2 million yuan.
Tian Yihong, party secretary of Wugong county, said e-commerce has given local agriculture a boost and farmers no longer remain stuck at the lower end of the value chain.
The government has reiterated its support for e-commerce in underdeveloped rural areas. The Ministry of Commerce announced in October 2016 that “policy support will be given to small online retailers … to lower their operational costs.”
More will be done to support and nurture e-commerce businesses operating in rural regions, and training programs will be offered to small business owners, according to the ministry’s website.
As part of the Chinese government’s goal to eliminate poverty by 2020, it has created more than one thousand “Taobao villages” over the past decade.
Online sales revenue in 105 national-level poverty-stricken counties, including the model districts lauded by the Ministry of Commerce, reached 220 million yuan on average in 2016.
E-commerce plays a key role in poverty reduction, by not just giving a man a fish, but also teaching him how to fish, said Liu Qiangdong, chairman of JD.com.
Online business owners in rural China topped 8.11 million in 2016, creating over 20 million jobs.
Rural Internet users rose to 201 million, or 27.4 percent of the nation’s total.
E-commerce has changed people’s lives and their ways of thinking in rural China. Inspired by this good momentum, it is good to see talented people returning to their rural hometowns to start new businesses, said Li Yongjian with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Source: China Daily. Date: 2017-07-11
How China plans to boost actualisation of ERGP
With agriculture being a major component of Nigeria’s recently launched economic plan called Nigeria Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), the Chinese government’s initiative called the China-Nigeria Agricultural Modernization Cooperation Forum may prove pivotal to the success of the ERGP.
China boasts of being able to feed about 20 per cent of the world’s population with only around 9 per cent of the world’s arable land.
Speaking at the onset of the initiative held in Abuja, Dr Zhou Pingjian, Ambassador of China to Nigeria, stated that “Nigeria is the most populous country and largest economy in Africa. Agriculture accounts for 23 percent of its GDP and employs 38 per cent of its working population. No wonder agriculture and food security has been listed as one of the five key execution priorities of ERGP.”
He explained that “according to ERGP, agriculture will continue to be a stable driver of Nigeria’s GDP growth, with an average growth rate of 6.9 per cent over the plan period. By 2020, Nigeria is projected to become a net exporter of key agricultural products, such as rice, cashew nuts, groundnuts, cassava and vegetable oil.
“We are convinced that Nigeria will achieve self-sufficiency in tomato paste, rice, wheat and other farm produce through its own hard work. As a strategic partner of Nigeria, China stands ready to share its experience in agricultural development with Nigeria and provide financial and technical support to assist Nigeria achieve agricultural transformation and food security.
“We are willing to work with Nigeria side to provide more effective platform to mobilize more Chinese investment in Nigeria’s Green Alternative.”
The forum was put together by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), China Chamber of Commerce in Nigeria and a Chinese firm, Green Agriculture West Africa Limited (GAWAL).
Source: Nigerian Tribune. Date: 2017-07-11
WA to quench Vietnam’s growing taste for beer
Executives from the CBH Group and Interflour jointly celebrated the opening of the Intermalt grain processing centre with representatives of the Vietnamese government.
Intermalt is located in Cai Mep, Vietnam, and will be the largest malting plant in South East Asia. It will have the capacity to produce 110,000 tonnes of malt a year and will service major brewers in the region including Heineken Vietnam.
CBH Chairman Wally Newman said through its 50 per cent shareholding of Interflour the cooperative’s involvement in downstream grain processing in Vietnam has diversified the farmer owned business’ income stream and resulted in increased market opportunities for Australian grain.
“CBH’s investment in Interflour 12 years ago was ground breaking and the opening of the Intermalt facility marks a new phase of growth for the business as it moves into barley processing and expands across South East Asia,” Mr Newman said.
“It will be a new chapter for Western Australian barley growers who now have direct access to Vietnam’s burgeoning beer market,” he said.
Mr Newman said over the past harvest growers delivered 1.5 million tonnes of malt barley into the CBH silos and the facility provides a new market for growers.
As part of the final commissioning phase, Intermalt has already purchased 42,000 tonnes of malt barley, with 32,000 tonnes coming from the Kwinana and Albany port zones of the Western Australian grain belt.
“Not only is the Intermalt infrastructure impressive, but so too is the growth and opportunity it affords our growers, our businesses and the Asia Pacific region as a whole,” Mr Newman said.
“Our current and future growers can look forward to benefiting from Interflour’s expansion and this new venture generating value that we can then return to them a number of ways including through our investment rebate,” he said.
Heineken Vietnam corporate affairs director Matt Wilson said Heineken Vietnam always seeks to use local suppliers where possible in order to drive jobs and wealth in Vietnam.
“Our preference for local sourcing has seen us contribute around 0.75% of Vietnam’s total GDP and support nearly 200,000 jobs in Vietnam,” Mr Wilson said.
“Because of this, we are very happy to see Intermalt entering the local market with the potential to supply us with locally produced malt in the future and increase our contribution to the Vietnamese economy,” he said.
CBH Chairman Wally Newman and Chief executive officer Andy Crane attended the ceremony together with directors and senior leaders including Interflour Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Greg Harvey, Intermalt General Manager James Kirton and representatives from the Vietnamese government.
Source: Farmingahead. Date: 2017-07-12
Asia’s future farms
Food shortages are a distant memory for many people in Asia. But as the region struggles to feed and nourish a booming population, they could become a painful fact of life again.
Asia is already the world’s largest food market, and by 2050 its population is expected to grow to five billion – an increase of 900 million people. Owing to its expanding middle class, the region will likely account for half of the global increase in annual beef and poultry consumption and over three quarters of the rise in fish consumption between now and 2030. And by then, more than 60% of total cereal demand in the developing world will come from South and East Asia. To keep up with this growing demand, food production will have to increase by 60-70% compared to a decade ago.
Ideally, Asia’s farms could simply expand their production. But they are woefully ill-equipped to do so. To produce a sufficient amount of food, Asia’s farms will need to undergo a twenty-first-century transformation.
Helping Asia’s farmers cope with climate change should be a central part of this effort. Although a warming planet could boost agricultural output in a few areas, it will severely limit production, and possibly trigger prolonged food crises, throughout the rest of the region. As water becomes increasingly scarce in traditionally fertile zones such as the Indo-Gangetic Plain, rising seas will ruin vast swathes of farmland. If sea levels were to rise by one meter, the resulting saltwater intrusion would threaten 70% of Vietnam’s coastal farmlands. And as waters warm and tidal flows change, yields from the Mekong Delta’s vast fishing grounds could plummet.
According to Asian Development Bank research, by 2050, irrigated rice and wheat yields could fall by as much as 20% and 44%, respectively. This would drive up the price for cereals, soybeans, and wheat by 70%, causing the number of malnourished children in the region to rise by 11 million.
But this doesn’t have to be Asia’s future, if its farmers can adapt. Most farmers today oversee family-run subsistence plots, and lack the money and know-how to improve productivity and crop quality. In Myanmar, for example, only 16% of farm households even use tillers or tractors to prepare the land for planting.
Moreover, environmental degradation has left huge swaths of land barren. According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, various forms of desertification affect nearly 40% of Asia’s total land area. While governments cannot create new arable land, they can – and must – pursue policies to support, consolidate, and intensify farming operations on the land that is still available.
For starters, the region’s governments can promote farm cooperatives. Not to be confused with old-style collectivized farming, today’s cooperatives are thoroughly commercial, prioritizing efficiency and profits. They comprise agricultural enterprises as well as farmers, all of whom pool their resources to create economies of scale, reduce costs, and lift incomes. When bought in bulk by a cooperative, inputs such as fertilizer and equipment are less expensive, as is the harvesting process. By coming together to coordinate planting, cooperatives in India and Nepal have made it possible for every member’s crops to be sown and harvested together by a machine, rather than individually by hand.
Cooperatives can also add value after the harvest, by streamlining crop cleaning, grading, packaging, storage, and transportation. This increases the supply of food and boosts farmers’ incomes, especially in places such as Bangladesh, where more than one-third of perishables spoil before ever reaching the consumer.
China is already modernizing farms through cooperatives, and by using digital e-commerce platforms to tap into high-value markets. In Vietnam, a cooperative program has improved the quality of produce for urban consumers, and boosted tea, fruit, and vegetable revenues by nearly one third.
Although cooperatives are gradually catching on in Asia, they will need more support. Most of the region’s cooperatives are fragile, informal arrangements. But with the right legal framework in place, they could become far more efficient and durable.
China’s 2007 Farmers’ Cooperative Law serves as a good model. By offering incentives such as value-added-tax exemptions, the law has encouraged cooperatives and other agricultural organizations to collaborate and create economies of scale. Within three years of the law’s enactment, the number of cooperatives in China had increased ninefold, to nearly 400,000.
Cooperatives also help farmers manage the effects of climate change, by creating networks through which members can share knowledge about tricky adaptive strategies like switching from crops to fish or shrimp in saline-affected areas. And with the extra income that cooperatives provide, farmers can buy greenhouses to prolong their production season, and shield against erratic weather. Cooperatives also allow farmers to benefit from previously unavailable techniques such as fertigation – using irrigation to deliver liquid fertilizers.
Finally, cooperatives make climate-smart technologies more affordable. With new digital technologies, farmers can better manage their land, water, and energy use, and prepare for bad weather. For example, the Philippines has experimented with apps that give farmers news about plant and animal diseases, the best places to buy and sell farm supplies, and upcoming weather events.
By using less labor, and more capital and technology, Asia’s future farms can grow enough food to feed everyone in the region. Cooperatives are one way to make this vision a reality. Only then will food shortages truly be a thing of the past.
Source: Euronews.
From bacon to blockchain – China’s changing pork sector
China, the world’s largest pork market, is seeking to reform the country’s pork industry in a drive to stabilise prices, improve product quality and adjust to changing consumption trends.
At the same time, private companies are also looking to meet higher standards and expectations of more sophisticated consumers.
Pork index
Perhaps the most important event in recent months has been the introduction of a pork price index at the Dalian Commodity Exchange, the first in China.
The China’s agriculture ministry and the Dalian Commodity Exchange signed the “Joint Action Plan for Bulk Agricultural Commodity Market Information” to jointly issue a “lean type pork price index”.
The pork price index, introduced on March 14, is the country’s first pork price index that is published on a government public service website and oriented toward a commercial application.
Stabilising factor
The index is compiled by using data from 89 large sized slaughtering companies in 16 main production and sales provinces in China.
The Dalian exchange said that “these slaughtering enterprises are representative of the country’s industry as their production accounts for 32% of the total slaughter volume of the designated slaughtering enterprises above a certain size across the country”.
This development is viewed as a stabilising factor in a country with often volatile pork prices.
That’s because the Chinese market has so far been dominated by small-scale farms which are highly sensitive to price swings. This has historically made it difficult to create a price index.
In the past, when pork supply was high, farmers reacted to a drop in prices by slaughtering pigs for meat rather than breeding more piglets.
A few months down the line this would result in a shortage of pork, sending prices high again.
Futures contract looms?
The introduction of the pork price index also lays the groundwork for futures and options contracts, which the Dalian has already hinted at.
Introducing a futures contract could result in more price stability because buyers and sellers can hedge against risk by agreeing on a price in advance, which could give pork producers peace of mind.
A futures contract is an agreement to buy a commodity or another asset at a specific price but have it delivered and paid for at a later date.
Crackdown on urban pig rearing
Another major development has been a crackdown on urban pig rearing and a drive towards more centralized, large-scale farming.
China’s latest five-year plan for agriculture set a goal of moving swine production away from waterways and densely populated areas, and into the countryside.
This resulted in widespread bans on pig production in urban areas, being implemented by local authorities from 2017.
The main impact from this will be lower pig production in the short term, which could result in higher domestic prices and more imports to compensate for the shortfall.
And as China consolidates and modernises its swine industry, the total volume and market share of pork production from large companies, especially fully-integrated operations, will further increase.
Chinese takeover
Pork has a huge influence on the Chinese economy, which is most pronounced in the consumer price index and is also reflected in inflation data.
According to some estimates, the country is home to half the world’s pig population and it also imports vast quantities of the meat.
This dynamic is seen as a primary reason behind the purchase in 2013 by China’s WH Group of US-based pork producer Smithfield Foods.
The rationale behind purchasing Smithfield Foods was to take advantage of lower hog prices in the US and higher pork prices in China.
Given China’s huge appetite for pork, perhaps it is not surprising that operating profits at Smithfield’s fresh pork business increased by 141% to $545m in 2016.
‘Growing faster than anywhere else’
In a Bloomberg interview in March, Kenneth Sullivan, executive director of WH Group and chief executive of Smithfield Foods, said that the company doesn’t see pork consumption moderating in China – not in the long term at least.
However, “in the short term the macroeconomic environment in China will cause a bit of a slowdown there.
“It’s already put a little bit of a dent there in protein consumption in the country.
“But if you look at it over the very long term, protein consumption in China is growing faster than any place in the world.
“The urbanisation, the increasing incomes all these have a very positive correlation to pork consumption and to protein consumption in general,” Mr Sullivan said.
Sow shrinkage hangover
Rabobank has underpinned this cautious forecast, with the bank downbeat on Chinese pork output prospects for the first half of 2017, given that “the sow inventory before August 2016 was, on average, 5% lower than 2015.
“Production will likely start to recover in the second half of 2017, as lower feed grain prices encourage farmers to build up herds and newly established capacity comes online.”
Mr Sullivan added that “we could see a significant increase in exports from the US to China – the big idea is that China is the biggest pork market in the world – half the world’s pork is consumed in China, so it’s a huge market”.
Western allure
Mr Sullivan also pointed out in the interview that consumption trends are changing in China.
Consumers are becoming more sophisticated and demand for Western style meats is growing.
He added: “The more income you have you change the way you consume pork.
“As their incomes rise, the more Western style produce they will consume, so American style bacon, ham, sausage, these sorts of things.
“For us, the WH Group, it’s a huge opportunity”.
Blockchain earns its bacon
Other US firms are also aware of this opportunity and are looking to ride this wave of change.
One of them is Walmart’s Chinese arm, which has teamed up with IBM to roll out a blockchain system to track pork movements from farm to store shelves.
The rationale behind this is to show customers that Walmart pork products are of high quality and are traceable, which is hoped will give Walmart customers peace of mind.
Source: AgriMoney Date: 2017-07-05
Malaysia declared free of bird flu virus
Malaysia has been declared free from the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1, or better known as the bird flu virus, as of July 1.
Veterinary Services Department director-general Datuk Dr Quaza Nizamuddin Hassan Nizam said the announcement was made following no new occurrences of the disease after 90 days from the last disinfection procedure on April 1.
“The 90-day period is a condition laid down by the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) in addressing these animal diseases,” he said in a statement here today.
Dr Quaza Nizamuddin said the department had sent a full report to OIE on the situation and measures taken to address the issue.
Following the announcement, he said, importing countries such as Japan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and China were expected to lift restrictions for import of items such as poultry, ducks, and bird’s nest from Malaysia.
The disease was detected in 16 of 26 village-bred chickens on Feb 28 in Kampung Pulau Tebu, Mukim Tunjung, Kota Bharu.
On March 15, the Kelantan government declared the H5N1 epidemic as a state disaster after it spread from Kota Bharu and Pasir Mas to Bachok and Pasir Puteh.
Source: The Sun Daily. Date: 2017-07-05
