World Agriculture
Developments, trade, data, and topics in world agriculture
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In order to ensure food safety, "European cupboard" made what moveIn recent years, the Global Food Safety Index report, Denmark has been in the forefront. This small Nordic country with a local area of only 43000 square kilometers and a population of more than 550 million is known as the "European cupboard". Nearly three-quarters of agricultural products are exported, and pork exports account for a quarter of the world. Recently, Bent Hassen, chairman of the central region of Denmark, visited Shanghai and accepted an exclusive interview with "Liberation Monday. In his narration, it can be understood that "the reason why a small country like Denmark can maintain its status as a major exporter is precisely due to an efficient and strictly controlled food safety system". Inject animals with antibiotics how was it ended? Denmark can be called an out-and-out "farmer's kingdom". There are about 67000 farms in the country, and family farms own an average of 40 hectares of land. Agriculture occupies a pivotal position in the Danish national economy. Some Danish agricultural products are well-known and highly competitive in the international market. After long-term development, Danish agriculture has formed a modern agricultural industry chain focusing on breeding, planting and processing, which has its mature and unique industrial advantages and characteristics. Among them, the most important feature is that Denmark has established an extremely efficient and strict food safety guarantee mechanism, strictly restricting the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and agricultural products are welcomed by consumers all over the world with high quality, health and safety. Liberation Monday: Food safety is a chain that requires strict standards, security systems, and supervision and spot checks. What is the most important link in this chain? Bent Hasson: The quality of the food is the most important thing. In the case of the pig industry, we have adopted the most stringent quarantine standards in the world, both in the breeding and slaughtering process. In the slaughterhouse, all pigs must be subjected to strict inspection by a professional veterinarian vetted and employed by the government before they can be slaughtered. Such quarantine work is carried out independently to ensure its strictness and objectivity. Slaughterhouse employees must carry out careful internal and external inspections of the workplace in accordance with the standards of the food safety management system to ensure the highest standards of hygiene. Liberation Monday: In the process of animal breeding, the phenomenon of hormone injection exists in many countries and regions. Does Denmark have such a problem? Bent Hasson: We have strictly controlled the residues of antibiotics, hormones and other drugs in animals. In order to control antibiotics, we have indeed made a lot of efforts. In the 1990 s, Denmark's animal husbandry also encountered a crisis, when the use of antibiotics to promote animal growth was very common. In 1995, the government conducted an investigation and found that the use of antibiotics in farms can cause very dangerous chain reactions: the antibiotics used by farmers to animals are the same as the antibiotics prescribed by doctors to patients; the bacteria in the intestinal tract of animals are resistant to these antibiotics; then, people are infected with drug-resistant bacteria in these animals; some people get sick or even die, and the best antibiotics do not work in the treatment. In 2000, the government banned all antibiotic feed for all animals, large and small. Today, all Danish farms are free of antibiotics. People have successfully found alternatives to antibiotic feed-probiotics and zinc oxide in the feed, which can promote feed conversion. In 2000, many farmers thought that if they didn't use antibiotics, the livestock industry would be over. Now, not only have the number of farms not decreased, but the animals are healthier. Liberation Monday: Denmark's organic agriculture is also at the world's leading level. Compared with traditional planting, what are the characteristics of organic planting? Bent Hasson: compared with the traditional planting industry, the organic planting industry is characterized by the fact that it does not use pesticides and fertilizers at all, which means the increase of biodiversity, the protection of drinking water from pollution and other environmental benefits, so it is generally welcomed by Danish people. The Danish Ministry of Agriculture will send regular spot checks every year. If the use of pesticides and fertilizers exceeds the standard, farmers will be deprived of the right to produce. Organic agriculture is the direction of the future development of modern agriculture. We have issued policies to first turn the canteens of public institutions such as kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and nursing homes into "organic canteens" to ensure that the food ingredients in these canteens come from organic food. At present, 95% of the food ingredients in the canteens of all public institutions in Copenhagen come from organic food. Liberation Monday: The production process of food should also be organic. What experience do you have in this regard? Bent Hazen: Many of our farms use animal manure to produce biogas and recycle energy. In 2010, Denmark opened a special "pig city" in Garten: pigs are raised on the ground floor and tomatoes are planted on the top. The planted tomato seedlings can absorb the carbon dioxide emitted by the pig shed and remove the unpleasant smell of the pig house. Pig manure provides rich fertilizer for tomato seedlings. This is a virtuous circle. Slaughterhouse Rian "undercover" in Denmark, if you want to enter the farm to visit, it is not easy. The vast majority of Danish farms are enrolled in pathogen-specific health programmes, using pathogen-free seed breeding and segregated closed management. In order to prevent people from bringing in bacteria, farms have strict standards for people to enter and leave. When farmers enter and leave the barn, they must be cleaned, even the computer keyboard, telephone, shower head, toilet and restaurant in the farm office must be carefully cleaned. Liberation Monday: Prince Joakim of Denmark once confessed that he likes to be a farmer best. He said: "Because the farms are all mechanized, it's cool to be a farmer in Denmark." bent Hasson: Being a farmer in Denmark is happy, but not everyone can do it. Farmers also need to receive higher education. Whether you are taking care of livestock on the farm or cultivating farmland, you must first receive 3 years of basic education in the agricultural college and about 1 year of internship. Only after passing the examination can you be qualified to cultivate and manage farms and pastures. At the same time, an ecological food Junior College school has also been established to teach farmers how to grow ecological crops. If you want to be an "ecological farmer", you must first take an ecological farming course. Such Junior College schools require about two and a half years of schooling. In this way, farmers have learned the basics of how to grow safe food. In addition, all personnel related to the cultivation, breeding and testing of agricultural and sideline products must receive professional training before they can take up their posts. Liberation Monday: It seems that it is not easy to be a farmer in Denmark, so who will pay for the training? Bent Hasson: We have invested a lot of money in the development of agricultural science and technology and new agricultural products, of which more than 90% of agricultural research funding comes from government investment. The government subsidizes agricultural education. Most of the agricultural schools are subsidized by the government. The government subsidy funds account for 70% of the school running funds. Free education is implemented for the children of poor farmers. Farmers can receive education with very little money. The Government has invested in the establishment of an agricultural advisory body. Liberation Monday: What else is the government involved in the management of food sources? Bent Hasson: Some of the inspectors on the slaughter line are the slaughterhouse's own workers, while others are "undercover" by the government ". Twice a year the government will calculate the salaries of these inspectors, how many inspectors we have and how long we have worked here, and then send a bill to the slaughterhouse asking them to pay these inspectors. Once a problem is found, the quarantine personnel have the right to independently exercise supervision and inspection functions, and immediately recommend improvement measures. If the situation is serious, the factory can be closed. We have a very strict system that other EU countries are unlikely to do, because different links, such as farms, organizations, slaughterhouses, etc., have different interests. However, Denmark has adopted a joint venture system. Each farmer is a member of the industry. The entire industry must share risks and benefits. Therefore, the government, organizations, farms, and slaughterhouses can cooperate closely. Every animal has an ID number" food safety is a concept that everyone in Denmark has. Therefore, the most stringent food safety standards have been implemented for a long time, and there is a strict food quality and safety assurance system. Advanced testing methods and instruments can ensure food safety; independent agencies supervise and spot check food manufacturers to ensure that the products entering the market are safe. In many ways, Denmark's food safety requirements are even more demanding than EU standards. Liberation Monday: The food production process pursues excellence. What is Denmark's special practice in other processes in the food safety chain? Bent Hasson: The transportation of food should be more strict. Many animals enjoy the treatment of "VIP luxury box" in transportation. To avoid infection during transportation, we use special vehicles with sealed air filter ventilation to transport animals. The air circulation, temperature, humidity and other data in the cabin are controlled by computer, and even the drivers are specially trained. In addition, the truck must be cleaned, disinfected, and isolated for a certain period of time before it can be transported to the farm again. In Denmark, every animal on the farm has an "ID number". We have established a central database for all livestock, including their time and place of birth, whether they have changed farms, etc. Each animal has a number. Once there is an epidemic, it can be quickly traced back to what went wrong. Liberation Monday: how to ensure food safety for the commercial operation of the table? Bent Hasson: I have also seen smiling faces in some Chinese restaurants, and Denmark also has such a smiling face scheme. In 2001, we implemented the "from farm to table" food safety supervision mechanism. After the introduction of the plan, all restaurants, canteens, snack bars, butcher shops and other shops in Denmark will be subject to regular inspections by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. Inspection is approximately 1 to 3 times per year. The inspection results will be displayed on the "smiley face scheme" and required to be posted in the most conspicuous position of the store and announced to consumers. If the results are posted in the corner, the store will be punished for it. Our "smiley face scheme" consists of 4 different faces: laughing, smiling, expressionless and sad. If the store has been "sad" several times in a row and still does not improve, the store will face a high fine. If the store gets a "laugh" rating four times in a row and has no bad record in the past 12 months, it will be awarded a higher level of smiling face-"elite smiling face". 2015-09-30 http:// www. World Seed Industry Network
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Rabobank Raises Sugar Price Forecast Expected Global Sugar Price RiseOn September 30, Rabobank (Rabobank) raised its forecast for sugar prices, saying it was due to extreme weather in Brazil and India, the main producing countries. The bank raised its estimate for raw sugar futures in New York by 0.60 cents a pound. It raised its estimate for raw sugar prices next summer to 12.40 cents a pound, up from 12.20 cents on Monday in the July 2016 contract. "Support for sugar market fundamentals is improving," the bank said." the bank expects a shortfall of 4.8 million tons of global sugar production in 2015/16, which is larger than other agencies' estimates. Platts Kingman, for example, expected a shortfall of 3.2 million tonnes two weeks ago. Rabobank said: "India and Brazil and other major producing countries are experiencing extreme weather. With the further strengthening of the El Niño phenomenon, the supply shortage caused by production cuts may further intensify." Rainfall in south-central Brazil has been affected by the El Nino phenomenon, and the remaining sugar cane harvest in the region is still at risk. In India, the second largest sugar producer, the country's sugar output in 2015/16 may be less than 27 million tons, down 5% from the previous year, mainly due to insufficient precipitation in the rainy season. The rainy season precipitation in Uttar Pradesh is only 54% of the normal level, while the precipitation in Maharashtra is 70% of the normal value. Verma, director Abinash of the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), also said on Monday that India's sugar output in 2015/16 is expected to be 27 million tons. Source: Yunnan Sugar Net | Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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Construction and Enlightenment of Japanese Agricultural Management SystemSince the beginning of the new century, the development of various types of new agricultural business entities and the promotion of large-scale operations have become a strategic choice for my country to accelerate the construction of modern agriculture and promote the simultaneous development of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization. Japan and China belong to the small-scale peasant society in East Asia, and have high similarity in cultural background, resource endowment and production conditions. An in-depth analysis of the characteristics of the construction of Japan's agricultural management system is of great significance for promoting the construction of new agricultural management entities in China. The Development Status and Characteristics of Agricultural Business Entities in Japan changes in the internal composition of (I) household operations and declining numbers in Japan, the sale of farmers and agricultural management body is the main force of agricultural production in Japan. Sales farmers refer to those who operate more than 0.3 hectares of arable land or whose sales of agricultural products in the past year are more than 500000 yen. In addition, there are "self-sufficiency farmers" and "land-owning non-farmers". From 2011 to 2014, Japan's sales of farmers decreased from 1.5611 million to 1.4116 million, a decrease of 9.6, but its share of the total increased by 2.5 percentage points. The degree of sideline selling farmers is deepening, and the degree of part-time farming is serious. In 2014, the number of agricultural operators in Japan was 1.4712 million, 146400 fewer than in 2011, a decrease of 9%. The composition of agricultural operators has changed, the number of family operators is slowly decreasing while the size of the family operators is expanding, while the number of organizational operators is increasing and the trend of corporatization is increasing. (II) agricultural legal person management has begun to take shape in recent years, as the government continues to lift the restrictions on companies and other legal person organizations engaged in agriculture, the organization and operation body has achieved rapid development. From the perspective of land transfer, the area of cultivated land transferred by the organization management body accounted for 70.9 of the total management area in 2014, far higher than the level of 33.8 of agricultural management bodies. The average operating area of each organization is 24.63 hectares, which is also much higher than the average level of agricultural operators. The scale of agricultural management has gradually expanded, and land circulation has become an important means. Among them, the concentration trend of the scale of the organization and management body is particularly obvious, and gradually become the main force of land circulation. In recent years, the trend of legalization of agricultural management in Japan is obvious, and the expansion of legalized agricultural management mainly depends on the increase in the number of companies and agricultural combined legal persons. rapid development of (III) colony farming collecting farming organizations mainly refer to agricultural management organizations that carry out common services and unified operations on a certain or all aspects of the agricultural production process. In recent years, the rapid development of agricultural organizations in the colony, agricultural production has gradually become the mainstream form of joint organization. Agribusiness organizations play an active role in supporting regional agriculture, especially in serving small and medium-sized farmers. The Enlightenment of the Development of Japanese Agricultural Management System to China (I) Support the Development of Specialized Farmers and Accelerate the Cultivation of New Professional Farmers in order to alleviate the trend of part-time and aging of agricultural labor force and encourage the concentration of agricultural land to "backbone farmers", Japan has established a system of identifying farmers. Under the impetus of this system, land is rapidly concentrated to those who identify agriculture, accelerating the effective and intensive use of agricultural land. Drawing lessons from Japan's experience in setting up "Youth Agricultural School" and "backbone Farmers' subsidy", China should pay more attention to the training of young professional farmers while supporting the development of professional farmers, and formulate a medium-and long-term plan for the training of new farmers at the national level. (II) cultivate new business entities and promote the legalization of agricultural operations Family farms, cooperatives and enterprises all belong to market legal persons. Compared with traditional farmers, the legalization of agricultural management can, on the one hand, promote the separation of livelihood and management, turn farmers into commodity producers and operators who operate independently and assume responsibility for their own profits and losses, and improve the level of specialization and intensification; on the other hand, it is conducive to agricultural operators to break the boundaries of regional departments and ownership, develop various forms of horizontal economic association, and improve the level of scale and organization. At present, my country's new agricultural business entities are still facing problems such as small scale, irregular operation, and insufficient development. Drawing on the experience of Japan, my country should clearly define the norms, identification methods and registration methods of new business entities such as large professional households, family farms, farmer cooperatives, and leading enterprises as soon as possible, and promptly formulate policies and measures to support new agricultural business entities to promote the health of corporate agriculture. Orderly development. (III) Innovate the Mode of Agricultural Operation Organization and Encourage the Development of Joint Organization of Agricultural Production with the support of the Japanese government, the alliance and cooperation between various agricultural operators have been continuously deepened, and various types of agricultural production joint organizations have been formed, such as joint utilization organizations, collective cultivation organizations and trusteeship service organizations. Drawing on the experience of Japan, China should actively encourage the association and cooperation between various agricultural business entities and explore the cultivation of various types of agricultural production joint organizations. (IV) Promote the New Mechanism of Agricultural Socialization Service and Accelerate the Construction of New Agricultural Management System the most distinctive feature of Japanese agriculture is the agricultural socialized service system of "combination of government and people. The government-led popularization guidance system and the agricultural management guidance system led by the Agricultural Association provide agricultural science and technology services for all aspects of Japanese agriculture from production to sales and all aspects of rural life, effectively promoting the development of Japanese agriculture and rural areas. In addition, through the revision of laws and system reforms, the Japanese government has implemented a series of policies and measures to promote the circulation of agricultural land and large-scale operation, promote the common development of family management, legal person management and centralized agricultural management, and initially build an agricultural management system with clear structure, complementary functions and dynamic adjustment. Drawing on the experience of Japan, while strengthening the construction of public welfare service organizations, my country should accelerate the cultivation of operational service institutions, explore and innovate social service models, and form an organic combination of public services, cooperative services, and market-oriented services, overall coordination, and comprehensive development. Agricultural socialized service system. Source: China Agricultural Economic Information Network | Time: July 11, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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The Experience of Land Circulation in Japan for the Promotion of Land Circulation in ChinaSummary: through the introduction of the effective measures taken in the process of land circulation in Japan, and after analyzing the characteristics of the land circulation system in Japan, this paper summarizes that only by constantly improving the legislation, giving full play to the positive role of the market economy, increasing financial support, and constantly training the quality of agricultural practitioners, and establishing agricultural cooperation organizations, can we promote the promotion of land circulation in China. Keywords: japan, land circulation, system, China 1. Japanese Land Circulation System 1. The change of Japan's land system in the existing literature, the most detailed introduction to the reform of Japan's land system is the book "Japan's land system" by Japanese writer Guan Gu Jun, which divides the Japanese land system into three stages through a comprehensive textual research on the Japanese land system. In the first stage, the Japanese government used strong means to abolish the feudal and semi-feudal land ownership system, and clearly stipulated the system of using self-cultivation farmers, and vigorously promoted the small-scale, family-based possession and management strategy represented by "the tiller has his land". For the first time, land ownership was combined with the right to use. From 1946 to 1950, the government chose to use tough measures to purchase landlowners' land and resell the acquired land to farmers who had no or little land at that time. After this series of land reforms, Japan finally established the system of self-cultivation in its own country. The proportion of self-cultivation rose to 88% of the total agricultural output, and the proportion of cultivated land even reached 90%. At this stage, the Japanese government controlled the scale of agricultural land within 3hm2. In order to further ensure the effectiveness of land reform, the Japanese government also promulgated the "Agricultural Land Law" in 1952. Since then, Japan has established a modern agricultural management method characterized by small-scale family management. In the early 1950 s, the total number of farmers in Japan was 6.18 million, with an average arable land area of 0.8 hm2 per household. Among this group of people, the number of farmers within 1hm2 was about 77.5 per cent of the total number, while the number of farmers within 2hm2 was only 3.5 per cent of the total population. In the second stage, the Japanese government began to try to relax the restrictions on land ownership transfer, advocate land transfer and relatively centralized methods, and encourage farmers to consciously expand the scale of land ownership. The government formally introduced the "Basic Law on Agriculture" in 1961. Its main purpose is to greatly increase agricultural productivity and reduce the productivity gap between agriculture and the domestic secondary and tertiary industries. Efforts should be made to improve the income level of the agricultural population and reduce the gap between different employees. Therefore, in this law, the government pays great attention to the implementation of other measures to enhance farmers' enthusiasm for expanding agricultural production, which is mainly reflected in the amendment to the Basic Agricultural Law issued in 1962, which stipulates that the amount of land that farmers can own is limited to more than the 3hm2 limit required by the Agricultural Land Law issued in 1952, however, the premise is that this part of the farmer can only use the labor belonging to the family. The law also allows farmers who have left their villages to work in cities to entrust their land to small-scale agricultural cooperatives and ask them to farm instead. In the third stage, the Japanese government shifted the core of agricultural land reform from ownership to use system. Under the premise of small-scale family possession of agricultural land, it encouraged the development of cooperative enterprises and expanded the scale of operation. The government encouraged farmers to separate land ownership and use rights. In the middle and late 20th century, the Japanese government gradually changed from encouraging the centralized possession of agricultural land by the agricultural population to the mode of decentralized possession and centralized operation. Since the 1970 s, the Japanese government has continuously introduced a number of laws and regulations to promote land reform and adjustment, encouraging farmers to minimize the problems caused by decentralized management through various forms of collaborative production such as farmland leasing and operation entrustment. 2. The characteristics of Japan's agricultural land transfer system First of all, the Japanese government according to the actual situation, timely and effective to improve the land system, is the key to ensure the smooth progress of land transfer. Through the timely and effective regulation of the tenancy relationship in the abandoned restricted agricultural land, the government has made a very useful attempt to promote the separation of agricultural land ownership and management rights, and finally laid the necessary foundation for the large-scale operation based on leasing. The Japanese government successively carried out deeper and larger-scale second and third revisions to the Agricultural Land Law in 1970 and 1982. The consequence of this revision is that the threshold for land leasing has been further reduced, and farmers are involved in it. The enthusiasm has been greatly improved. Since the government recognizes that farmers who leave the land have the right to lease land from the legal level, this provides necessary legal support for private land transfer. In the 1980 s, the Japanese government introduced the "Agricultural Land Use Promotion Law", which determined the lease of land and promoted the flow of land management rights. Secondly, the government actively set up cooperative economic organizations as intermediary agencies, which is a powerful measure to promote the smooth progress of land circulation. Agricultural cooperative organizations follow the principle of unified management and unified purchase. Thirdly, the Japanese government has also implemented a system called identifying farmers, which provides a very important guarantee for ensuring the direction of land transfer. Enlightenment of 2. Japanese Land Transfer Experience to Promote the Development of Land Transfer in China 1. The government plays an active leading role. By analyzing the characteristics of different stages of agricultural land transfer in Japan, we can find that in the process of land transfer in Japan, the government has played a very important role in the policy formulation at the macro level, the policy support for intermediary organizations and the protection of farmers' rights and interests in the specific implementation process. The government's multi-party efforts have played a pivotal role in ensuring the smooth progress of land transfer. The author believes that in the process of promoting China's land circulation, the government should also give full play to the active leading role. Active legislation adjusts the current relevant laws and regulations on the premise of ensuring the unwavering implementation of the household contract management system. Specifically, we can start from the following three aspects: First, formulate laws and regulations suitable for land transfer. Second, following the laws of the market, government work is "not absent" and not "offside" in the management process ". Third, the government needs to give corresponding financial subsidies as appropriate. In the process of land transfer, farmers will inevitably bear some market risks. The government should give necessary subsidies to ensure that farmers participate in land transfer at lower risks. 2. Give full play to the intermediary role of agricultural cooperative organizations in the market. Japanese agricultural cooperative organizations have always played an important intermediary and bridge role in the process of agricultural land transfer. It is precisely because of the participation of agricultural cooperative organizations that land transfer has been qualitatively improved in terms of speed and efficiency. In view of its important role in land transfer, the Chinese government should also support it at the policy level. References: feng Zhendong, Huo Li, Shao Chuanlin. 2010. A Review of Studies on Rural Land Circulation in China [J]. Journal of Northwest University: Philosophy and Social Sciences (2):78-80. Ke Hui Bing. 2010. Public Economics Analysis of Social Security Transfer Payment [J]. Contemporary Finance and Economics (8):68-69. Xiang Yicai, Wu Zhongyu. 2011. The Defects of China's Current Social Security System and Its Improvement Countermeasures [J]. Journal of Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics (5):102-103. Xiong Hongfang, Deng Xiaohong. 2010. The Enlightenment of American and Japanese Farmland Transfer System to China [J]. Agricultural Economy (11):23-24. Zhou Jianguo. 2011. On the Procedural Legal Guarantee of the Orderly Circulation of the Right to Contract Management of Farmland [J]. Journal of Guangxi Administrative Cadre College of Politics and Law (1):105-106. Zou Suqin, Ni Hanjuan. 2010. Study on the Forms and Trends of Rural Collective Land Circulation [J]. Journal of Heilongjiang Institute of Socialism (1):89-90 source: China Agricultural Economic Information Network | Time: August 26, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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EU farmers under pressure~ ~ EU farmers under pressure BILL CRABTREE - WESTERN AUSTRALIAN FARMER AND CONSULTANT 30 Sep, 2015 04:00 AM I RECENTLY travelled for three weeks throughout Western Europe along with about 20 other Australian farmers, learning about the region's agriculture and associated challenges. As we all know Australian farmers battle droughts, frost and weeds. But what we learned from our travels is that the battles our European farming cousins face are just as significant as ours. Farmers in Western Europe face issues like excessive taxes (along with distorted subsidies); significant weed challenges; over-regulation; small scale and fragmented farms; a loss of herbicide tools; and excessive tillage which leads to constant soil loss. The strongest impression that struck me during this farming tour was the volume of weeds in every field. In many crops farmers have resorted to hand weeding and we saw few crops that had low weed burdens. It made me reflect on what a speaker said at the International Herbicide resistance conference in Fremantle in January 2014, where he talked of the increasing prevalence of herbicide resistance in Europe. Combine this with their banning of six major herbicides that we use in Australia, and their significant weed seed bank, I can foresee huge challenges for weed control in Europe. This could well be reflected in lower yields in the future unless they change. The farmers our tour group spent time with realise that they are on a downward productivity and efficiency slide. This is reflected in the farmer tractor protest held in Paris while we were there. One of the farmers we visited was involved in the protest and married a Bendigo girl. They both explained their challenges, in detail. Indeed the corn crop yields in France have flat-lined for the last 16 years while their global competitors have seen strong annual increases. Ironically, we discovered, through visiting two of Europe's big agrochemical companies - Bayer and Syngenta - that they have discovered chemicals that could potentially act as new knock-down herbicides. However, they did not envisage these herbicides would be brought to market because of the increasingly strict, and I would argue, over-regulations that have engulfed Europe in the last 20 years. This makes me wonder if the Grains Research and Development Corporation funded project looking at molecules with Bayer, for Australian agriculture, could lead to a significant breakthrough for us, in potentially accessing some novel products. Since we don't have subsidies, I would think this might be a fair futuristic reward. But, our commercial Australian farming community needs to actively protect and argue for common sense with retaining sensible pesticide access. There are global market bloggers who profiteer from encouraging consumers to preference products from unsustainable farming systems. The farmers we spent time with from UK, France, Spain, Switzerland and Italy were generally quite pessimistic about their future in agriculture. The small farms of 100-250 hectares in size just can't produce enough to be economically viable, even with subsidies and wheat yielding 6-11t/ha. Most farmers had a second job off-farm. In Spain, where the lowest yields occur (down to 1 t/ha), some farmers were diversifying from wheat, corn and canola into almonds, onions and other intensive crops. In France farmers were also swinging over to sugar beet, potatoes and onions. The no-till farmers were being challenged by increased mice activity and fox hunters that remove their mice predators. We were told by a Spanish agronomist that the solar panels that frequented the Spanish landscape and espoused as a great success for sustainable energy were kaput. Some 50 per cent have been turned off three years ago as the Spanish government could not afford to subsidise them anymore. We learnt from a wind turbine expert that each turbine costs $A3 million and has a lifespan of 15 years and can supply enough power, when the wind blows, to power 20,000 houses. We saw many turbines doing nothing on many days. The local communities subsidise these turbines which they found annoying. We visited a biogas plant in Italy where 30pc of the cost is subsidised. This plant takes corn and manure and drives a V12 engine to pump electricity into the grid. On a positive note we met with Tony Reynolds who farms two hours north of London and he has been no-tilling successfully for 10 years. Tony has had an excellent year with one wheat field yielding 11.3 t/ha, his soil structure has improved greatly with good water infiltration improvements and an abundance of earthworms. Tony's neighbour and good friend Tony Gent has designed a unique disc opener (pictured below) which I think is very original with some very nice features - it is great for clay soils. It has a lifting action where the disc does not compact the seed zone, avoids hair-pinning and can cut through massive amounts of residue. The opener also has a unique swivel action. I believe it has good potential for Australian farming conditions. The opener is being commercialised by Weaving Seeders. We had many vibrant discussions while on the bus and the group became good friends and like all our trips will likely stay in touch with each other for life http://www.theland.com.au/news/agriculture/general/opinion/eu-farmers-under-pressure/2744552.aspx?storypage=0
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More than half of EU countries reject GM~ ~ Over Half of E.U. Countries Are Opting Out of GMOs by Alexandra Sifferlin October 4, 2015, 1:03 PM EDT 16 countries want to prohibit genetically modified crops. Sixteen countries have alerted the European Union that they want to opt out of E.U.-approved GM crops. Members of the economic bloc have until Oct. 3 to let the E.U. know if they were requesting to opt out of growing GMO produce from major companies like Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta and Pioneer, and according to the Food Navigator, a food trade publication, countries including Germany, Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria and Cyprus recently filed their requests and applications, increasing the number to 16. Exactly how many countries will ultimately opt out could be confirmed as soon as Monday. In August, Scotland publicly said it would prohibit GMO crops out of concern that they could damage the country's “clean and green” brand. “Scotland is known around the world for our beautiful natural environment - and banning growing genetically modified crops will protect and further enhance our clean, green status," Rural affairs secretary Richard Lochhead said in a statement at the time. http://fortune.com/2015/10/04/over-half-of-e-u-countries-are-opting-out-of-gmos/ “A growing number of governments are rejecting the commission's drive for GM crop approvals," Greenpeace's E.U. food policy director Franziska Achterberg told the Guardian. “They don't trust the E.U. safety assessments and are rightly taking action to protect their agriculture and food. The only way to restore trust in the E.U. system now is for the commission to hit the pause button on GM crop approvals and to urgently reform safety testing and the approval system ." The Guardian reports that environmentalists have praised the news, while industry and biotech supporters have responded to opt-outs with “weary resignation ." “The new E.U. legislation allowing these bans is a 'stop' sign for agricultural cultivation that sends a negative signal for all innovative industries considering investing in Europe," Beat Spath, the director of the industry group Europabio, told the Guardian. The science community holds a variety of opinions on GMOs. Some members, like Jonathan Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences argue the problem with GMOs isn't necessary the technology, but the fact that they haven't lived up to their hype. Genetically modified crops have not fully delivered on promises to drastically reduce world hungry or significantly cut down on the need for pesticides. In the U.S., GMOs have been in the food supply for around 20 years, and are regulated by federal groups including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “While FDA regulates foods and ingredients, including foods made from [genetically engineered (GE)] plants, the agency neither supports GE plants based on their perceived benefits nor opposes them based on their perceived risks," the agency says. This article was originally published on Time.com.
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California agriculture weathered drought, but at great cost~ ~ California agriculture weathers drought - at a cost El Niño might bring relief, but longer and deeper dry spells are predicted. Erika Check Hayden 30 September 2015 Zackary Canepari/NYT/Redux/eyevine Wildfires have proliferated during California's ongoing drought. Three brown, withered lawns surround David Behar's home in Marin County, north of San Francisco in California. Behar, who directs the climate programme at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, no longer waters his grass - after several years with next to no rainfall, he gave in and brought greenery to his home in the form of drought-resistant plants instead. It is just one of the many adjustments that Californians have had to make as the state enters its fifth year of drought (see 'Dry state'). As of 30 September - the end of the 2015 'water year' - the state's water supplies are desperately low. The spring snowpack is the paltriest ever measured - by April it contained just 5% of a normal year's water - and by the end of August the major reservoirs held 59% of their historical average. Wildfires have burned through almost three times more land than they do in an average year. And there are myriad ecological impacts, including more patches of dead foliage than usual in the canopies of the state's iconic giant sequoia trees. Yet despite the severe lack of rainfall, the state's biggest consumer of water has fared remarkably well. Agriculture last year generated revenues that were just 1.4% lower than in 2013, when it took in a record US$34 billion, according to the Pacific Institute, a think tank in Oakland, California. Agriculture-related employment reached a record high of 417,000, and the amount of land being used for farming had fallen by less than 10% from pre-drought levels. But that has come at a cost. Farmers have sustained production mainly by pumping up huge amounts of groundwater. “The massive overdraft of groundwater to make up for lost surface water has buffered farmers, and that can't continue forever," says Pacific Institute president Peter Gleick. In August, NASA reported that the massive increase in pumping has caused parts of the state to sink by 33 centimetres in less than a year. Some households that rely on wells have been left without water to shower or wash dishes. The weather looks set to change, although only in the short term. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that this winter will see a strong El Niño, a storm pattern that has delivered extremely wet winters to California in the past. But plentiful rains are by no means certain, especially for regions outside southern California. “It remains to be seen whether an El Niño will provide relief this year," Behar says. But the rains are unlikely to last for long. A team led by climatologist Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford University in California has used historical data and climate models to show that global warming is increasing the odds of the state seeing warm, dry conditions similar to those that spawned the current drought (N. S. Diffenbaugh et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 112, 3931-3936; 2015). The droughts could even last for many decades. By incorporating palaeoclimate data into climate models, Benjamin Cook of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City and two co-authors are predicting droughts that could last as long as 35 years (B. I. Cook et al. Sci. Adv. 1, e1400082; 2015). “We're in a new climate, and it's a climate in which the probability of severe drought conditions is elevated," Diffenbaugh says. “That recognition is really critical ." The state is working hard to respond to the dire warnings. In April, governor Jerry Brown called for a 25% reduction in municipal water consumption. Californians managed to save even more than that in both June and July, even though that is when irrigation needs tend to be highest. Last September, Brown signed legislation that takes the first steps towards regulating groundwater use by asking localities to make plans to ensure the sustainability of their groundwater supplies. However, some complain that he has not been tough enough. The path to sustainability does not need to be in place until 2040 - that is hardly an aggressive timeline, says Gleick. And in June, the state's water board ordered some of the most-senior water-rights holders - the farmers and irrigation districts entitled to draw first in times of shortage - not to take water from rivers and streams. Some irrigators have responded with lawsuits that are still working their way through the courts. The state's water-rights system is said to discourage conservation, because rights holders with priority may see their water allotments cut if they do not use their allocations in a given year. Push to recycle Meanwhile, Behar and other planners around the state are pushing technological fixes that range from less-water-intensive agriculture and more-efficient home appliances to treating wastewater for reuse. Orange County already pumps treated wastewater into its groundwater; San Diego is developing a similar system and, on 8 September, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission approved a plan to recycle wastewater to irrigate Golden Gate Park. Steven Ritchie, the commission's assistant general manager for water, says that some regions are even looking into the long-discussed idea of desalination - a perennial option that is seldom used because it is energy intensive and therefore expensive. Ritchie says that one idea on the table for the region would be to cut the cost by desalinating brackish water from the San Francisco Bay Delta, rather than ocean water. Water produced in that way would cost about as much as that pumped from wells, Ritchie says, but would still be more costly than surface water. “The choice might be: expensive water, or no water," Ritchie says. “We have to continue to plan for the future and diversify our supply; we cannot take anything for granted." Nature 526, 14-15 (01 October 2015) doi:10.1038/526014a
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US calls for dropping agricultural barriers in TTP~ ~ US urged to drop TPP agri barriers JOHN KEHOE 02 Oct, 2015 08:24 AM Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb. I came to lower protection so I get frustrated if we are talking about increasing protection Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb. A FRUSTRATED Australia and New Zealand have directly challenged the Obama administration to tear down protectionist trade barriers for agriculture to help reinject momentum into a stalling Pacific Rim free trade deal. As negotiations between trade ministers from the 12 Trans-Pacific Partnership countries looked likely to drag on beyond Thursday's deadline in Atlanta, Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb urged the United States to take a leadership role by opening up dairy and sugar markets to foreign competition. Mr Robb held two face-to-face meetings with US Trade Representative Mike Froman on Wednesday and laid out the Turnbull government's conditions for signing a deal. The US is pressuring Australia to increase intellectual property protections for new-age pharmaceutical drugs, known as biologics, beyond the existing five years. Mr Robb has responded that Australia's system adequately balances incentivising drug innovators and ensuring medicines are affordable. "I came to lower protection so I get frustrated if we are talking about increasing protection in the case of biologics or see no reduction in other areas," Mr Robb said. Mr Robb and his New Zealand counterpart, Tim Groser, view the US as the potential key trend-setter in encouraging other TPP countries, including Japan, Canada and Mexico, in going the extra yard to strip away trade barriers and seal the TPP. Mr Robb is concerned the US government is hamstrung by edgy Congress members threatening to vote against the TPP if it is perceived to harm American dairy and sugar farmers. On the other hand, Australia's push to increase its 87,000 tonne sugar quota in the US gained the backing of 45 Congress members who signed a letter to Mr Froman urging him to "significantly expand US sugar imports ".
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Ukraine seeks foreign capital to invest in its agriculture~Ukraine looks for foreign investment in agriculture Richard Halleron ? October 4, 2015 ? 0 Comment Ukraine looks for foreign investment in agriculture Ukraine is about to open up as a uniquely attractive farm and agri-development opportunity for potential investors from Ireland and the rest of the EU, according to the country's deputy agrarian policy minister Vladyslava Rutytska. “Both land leasing and purchase options are now available," she said. “The Ukranian government has introduced a series of measures which make land ownership more transparent while, at the same time, clamping down on issues, such as corruption. “Our government is creating a stable and sustainable business environment, which will make international investment opportunities in Ukraine extremely attractive ." Rutytska spoke recently at a Ukrainian investment conference held in London, which was co-hosted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The deputy minister confirmed that Ukraine has vast acreages of highly productive land. “But we want to build on this for the future," she said. “Four large scale irrigation projects, planned for the south of the country, will allow farmers in these regions to double crop yields. These initiatives are backed by the likes of the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. “The projects are part of a complete overhaul regarding the effectiveness of the national irrigation system in Ukraine ." Farming and food products account for 6.6% of Ukraine's total exports. One fifth of the Ukrainian work force is employed within the farming industry. “During the first seven months of 2015, agriculture accounted for US$7.7 billion of export sales," said Rutytska. “This figure accounted for 35% of foreign currency earnings. We expect the value of our agri food exports to double over the coming years. This will be achieved on the back of our current reform policies and a commitment to secure higher levels of inward investment. Ukraine exports 950,000t of wheat, 400,000t of maize and 250,000t of barley to the EU, courtesy of a quota system. The Netherlands is a major importer of Ukrainian maize with trade in this commodity amounting to US$158m so far this year. Italy imported US$53m of Ukrainian wheat during the same period. Up to the end of Septembers Ukrainian farmers had harvested 38.618m tonnes of grains and pulses, taking in an area of 10.68m ha. The equivalent figures for maize and oilseeds are 1.065m tonnes and 3.34m tonnes respectively, taking in a combined area of almost 2m ha. Over recent weeks, Ukrainian cereal growers have planted out just over 1m ha of winter wheat plus half this area again of winter oilseeds Minister Rutytska admitted that the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia has had an significant economic impact. “We estimate total agricultural losses, in terms of both revenues and property, at approximately US$1billion," she said. “As a result of imposed restrictions, Ukraine's agricultural exports to Russia decreased by 50% from US$2 billion to US$1 billion. “But this will have no impact on the investment opportunities that now exist in Ukraine. A combination of government and land reforms will ensure a totally transparent system of governance where all aspects of land ownership and management are concerned ." http://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/ukraine-looks-for-foreign-investment-in-agriculture/
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Sustainable Development Goal: Fisheries~~A Fish Called Development Oby Ezekwesili, a former Nigerian Education Minister and cofounder of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International, is a Global Ocean Commissioner. Photo of José María Figueres José María Figueres José María Figueres, former President of Costa Rica, is Co-Chair of the Global Ocean Commission. Photo of Pascal Lamy Pascal Lamy Pascal Lamy, a former director-general of the World Trade Organization, is a Global Ocean Commissioner. GENEVA - The just-adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are expected to herald the start of a new era in global development, one that promises to transform the world in the name of people, the planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership. But there is an ocean of difference between promising and doing. And, while global declarations are important - they prioritize financing and channel political will - many of today's pledges have been made before. In fact, whether the SDGs succeed will depend to a significant degree on how they influence other international negotiations, particularly the most complex and contentious ones. And an early test concerns a goal for which the Global Ocean Commission actively campaigned: to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development ." When political leaders meet at the tenth WTO Ministerial Conference in Nairobi in December, they will have an opportunity to move toward meeting one of that goal's most important targets: prohibition of subsidies that contribute to overfishing and illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing by no later than 2020. This is not a new ambition; it has been on the WTO's agenda for many years, and it has been included in other international sustainable development declarations. But, even today, countries spend $30 billion a year on fisheries subsidies, 60% of which directly encourages unsustainable, destructive, or even illegal practices. The resulting market distortion is a major factor behind the chronic mismanagement of the world's fisheries, which the World Bank calculates to have cost the global economy $83 billion in 2012. In addition to concerns about finances and sustainability, the issue raises urgent questions about equity and justice. Rich economies (in particular Japan, the United States, France, and Spain), along with China and South Korea, account for 70% of global fisheries subsidies. These transfers leave thousands of fishing-dependent communities struggling to compete with subsidized rivals and threaten the food security of millions of people as industrial fleets from distant lands deplete their oceanic stocks. West Africa, where fishing can be a matter of life and death, is being particularly hard hit. Since the 1990s, when foreign vessels, primarily from the EU and China, began to fish on an industrial scale off its shores, it has become impossible for many local fishers to make a living or feed their families. From 1994 to 2005, Senegal's catch fell from 95,000 to 45,000 tons, according to government estimates, and the country lost half of its fleet of traditional wooden pirogues. As the fish stocks collapsed in 2005, 5,000 people decided to put their redundant fishing boats to a different use, by fleeing to the Spanish Canary Islands. A year later, more than 30,000 others made the same perilous journey, and an estimated 6,000 drowned. Senegalese and Mauritanian fishermen and their families are also among the thousands of people risking their lives to get to Europe today. On the high seas, the distortion is even larger. According to fisheries economists, subsidies by some of the world's richest countries are the only reason large-scale industrial fishing in areas beyond coastal countries' 200-mile exclusive economic zones is profitable. But fish do not respect international boundaries, and it is estimated that 42% of the commercial fish being caught travel between countries' exclusive zones and the high seas. As a result, industrial fishing far from shore undermines developing countries' coastal, mostly artisanal, fisheries. Eliminating harmful fisheries subsidies by 2020 is not only crucial for conserving the ocean; it will also affect our ability to meet other goals, such as our promises to end hunger and achieve food security and to reduce inequality within and among countries. The credibility of both the WTO and the newly adopted SDGs will be on the line in Nairobi. The Global Ocean Commission has put forward a clear three-step program to eliminate harmful fishing subsidies. All that is needed is for governments finally to agree to put an end to the injustice and waste that they cause. Fortunately, there are encouraging signs. Nearly 60% of the WTO's membership supports controlling fisheries subsidies, with support from the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of developing countries - together with the EU's contribution to improve transparency and reporting - giving new momentum to the effort. Among the initiatives being put forward in advance of the Nairobi meeting is the so-called “NZ +5 proposal." Co-sponsored by New Zealand, Argentina, Iceland, Norway, Peru, and Uruguay, the plan would eliminate fisheries subsidies that affect overfished stocks and contribute to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. The Global Ocean Commission urges the remaining 40% of the WTO's members - and especially the biggest players currently blocking this process - to accept the relatively modest proposals on the table. A sustainable future for our planet and its oceans depend on it.
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EU allocates 0.5 billion euros of "emergency" money to bail out agricultureOn September 7, 2015, thousands of farmers from many EU countries demonstrated in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, where the EU headquarters is located, to protest against the sharp drop in agricultural prices. According to reports, the European Commission announced on September 7, 2015 that it would allocate 0.5 billion million euros (about 0.557 billion US dollars) and implement a package of related measures to bail out agriculture. At present, the EU agriculture, especially the dairy industry is seriously troubled by low prices and cause widespread concern. Amid rising protests from farmers and repeated "calls for help" from member states, the agriculture ministers of the 28 EU countries held a special meeting on the 7th to discuss countermeasures. European Commission Vice President Katainen announced after the meeting that the EU will provide farmers with 0.5 billion euros of support to ease the agricultural price crisis. The European Commission stated that the rescue funds will be used to help farmers experiencing cash flow difficulties, stabilize markets and improve the operation of the supply chain. Catainen said that most of the funds will be distributed directly to member states in the form of "gift packages" to help the dairy industry tide over the crisis. The specific distribution ratio of this rescue fund in each member state has not yet been announced, but the European Commission emphasized that it will give priority to providing funding to some of the most severely affected countries under the principle of fairness. As a supporting measure, the EU allows member states to pay farmers up to 70% of the advance payment from October 16. At the same time, the EU will also vigorously develop private processing and storage for the dairy and pork production industries. Other measures include opening up new markets, promoting agricultural exports, increasing export budgets, and speeding up the signing of new bilateral trade agreements with other countries. However, the European Commission rejected the "price intervention" request made by some member states. Catainen said that price intervention cannot solve the current problem of disconnection between EU agricultural production and demand, and is not beneficial to the long-term development of EU agriculture. For more than a year, farmers in EU member states, especially in Western European countries, have become increasingly difficult. As the EU's economic sanctions against Russia led to Russia's counter-sanctions, the EU's agricultural exports to Russia were greatly affected, with pork exports to Russia alone falling from 740000 tons in 2013 to 65000 tons in 2014, a drop of 91 per cent. At the same time, with the weakening of external demand, the overproduction of agricultural products in the EU has led to lower prices. The abolition of the dairy quota system in the EU at the end of March 2015 has made this situation even worse. According to statistics from the European Commission, the price of raw milk in the EU fell by 20% in the year to June 2015. Earlier on the 7th, thousands of farmers from several EU member states drove tractors to hold a large-scale protest outside the EU headquarters, demanding that the EU promptly introduce a rescue policy to subsidize farmers on the verge of bankruptcy. According to the statement, the funds will be specifically used to help farmers solve the problem of short-term cash shortage, stabilize the market, and improve the supply chain of agricultural products. 2015/9/9 World Wide Web
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Review and Prospect of Grain Market in the First Half of 2015In the first half of 1., domestic grain prices showed a steady oscillation since 2015, the domestic grain market has generally shown a stable trend, with slight ups and downs in different varieties and periods. Among them, the trend of wheat, rice and corn is relatively stable. Affected by the implementation of the target price subsidy policy, the price of soybeans has fallen significantly. According to monitoring, as of the end of June, the national raw grain purchase price index of China Grain Storage 149.31, down 0.15 percent from the beginning of the year and up 0.47 percent from the same period last year. The wheat purchase price index was 139.36, down 2.5 percent from the beginning of the year and up 0.7 percent from the same period last year; the rice purchase price index was 151.5, up 0.2 percent from the beginning of the year and up 3.4 percent from the same period last year; the corn purchase price index was 153.25, up 0.6 percent from the beginning of the year and down 2.5 percent from the same period last year; the soybean purchase price index was 108.04, down 5.9 percent from the beginning of the year, it was down 10.9 per cent from a year earlier. See by variety: wheat: In the first half of 2015, domestic wheat prices as a whole showed a weak operating pattern due to relatively sufficient market supply and continued weak terminal demand. With the new wheat harvest and listing in late May, the price of the main production areas is generally low. After the start of the purchase plan, the purchase price of wheat rebounded slightly and fluctuated steadily near the purchase price of the market. According to monitoring, in late June, the factory price of ordinary white wheat in Zhengzhou, Henan Province was 1.22 yuan/jin, down 0.06 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year; the factory price of ordinary white wheat in Jinan, Shandong Province was 1.2 yuan/jin, down 0.06 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year; the factory price of ordinary white wheat in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province was 1.23 yuan/jin, down 0.07 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year; the year; the arrival price of ordinary white wheat in Guangzhou was 1.26 yuan/jin, it was down 0.065 yuan/kg from the beginning of the year. Rice: In the first half of the year, national policies continued to dominate the trend of the rice market, and domestic rice prices maintained a steady and slightly rising trend. The pattern of "strong rice and weak rice" and "excellent strong and generally weak" was obvious. Among them, the price of japonica rice rose steadily at the beginning of the year and remained stable. However, with the restriction of the centralized auction of national policy rice and the rotation of local grain reserves, the price of japonica rice has stagnated, and the price in some areas has decreased slightly. The overall price of indica rice is stable and weak. Due to the continuous impact of low-priced imported rice, the centralized auction of policy-oriented rice and the rotation of grain reserves at all levels, the market supply of indica rice is abundant and the price is running at a low level, but the price of high-quality indica rice continues to rise. At the end of June, from the perspective of japonica rice prices, the purchase price of japonica rice in eastern Heilongjiang was 1.57 yuan/jin, an increase of 0.02 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year; the purchase price of japonica rice in Nanjing, Jiangsu was 1.53 yuan/jin, a decrease of 0.02 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year. Judging from the price of indica rice, the purchase price of early indica rice in Hunan is 1.275 yuan/jin, down 0.105 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year, while the purchase price of medium and late indica rice in Hunan is 1.425 yuan/jin, up 0.045 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year. Affected by the difference between supply and demand, the overall performance of domestic rice prices in the first half of the year was "new strong and old weak". According to monitoring, at the end of June, from the perspective of the price of japonica rice, the wholesale price of japonica rice in Beijing was 2.33 yuan/jin, a decrease of 0.03 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year; the wholesale price of japonica rice in Shanghai was 2.13 yuan/jin, an increase of 0.02 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year. Judging from the price of indica rice, the wholesale price of indica rice in Changsha is 2.05 yuan/jin, up 0.1 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year, while the wholesale price of high-quality late indica rice in Guangzhou is 2.175 yuan/jin, up 0.005 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year. Corn: In the first half of the year, domestic corn prices showed a narrow oscillation pattern in the first quarter and then rose in the second quarter. The main reason is that this year's temporary storage and purchase volume hit a new high to raise the market expectation of corn prices, but weak consumption and a large number of imports of feed raw materials substitutes such as sorghum and barley depressed corn prices. In the first quarter, with the substantial increase in the purchase of corn from national temporary storage, domestic corn prices began to strengthen overall in March. However, in the case of sluggish demand and a large number of imports of alternative feed ingredients such as sorghum and barley, the overall trend of oscillation was maintained in the second quarter. According to monitoring, at the end of June, the purchase price of corn in Changchun was about 1.085 yuan/jin, up 0.015 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year; the purchase price in Zhaodong area of Heilongjiang was 1.05 yuan/jin, up 0.055 yuan/jin from the beginning of the year; the purchase price in Shijiazhuang was 1.17 yuan/jin, up 0.02 yuan/ton from the beginning of the year; the purchase price in Weifang, Shandong was 1.19 yuan/jin, up 0.10 yuan/jin from the beginning of the beginning of the year; the arrival price of Guangdong port is 1.215 yuan/kg, up 0.0125 yuan/kg from the beginning of the year. Soybeans: Since the beginning of this year, domestic soybean prices have generally shown a weak downward trend. From the perspective of domestic soybeans, affected by the target price subsidy policy, since the large number of new beans were listed last year, growers' reluctance to sell has continued to increase, and the difficulty of acquiring trading entities has increased. In addition, the market demand is limited, and the purchase and sale of domestic soybeans has been light, and the price has fallen sharply at the beginning of the year. Low oscillation; from the perspective of imported soybeans, the first half of this year is in a year, coupled with the abundant global soybean supply and the continuous high level of soybean stocks in domestic ports, the distribution price of domestic imported soybean ports in the first half of the year showed an overall downward trend. According to monitoring, as of the end of June, the purchase price of domestic soybeans in Harbin was 2.0 yuan/jin, down 9.09 percent from the beginning of the year, while the distribution price of imported soybeans in South China ports was 1.51 yuan/jin, down 10.12 percent from the beginning of the year. Edible oil: In 2015, the spot price of domestic edible oil showed a slow upward trend due to the decline in oil inventories and the expected reduction in production of new oilseeds. According to monitoring, at the end of June, the ex-factory price of grade 4 soybean oil in East China was 5800 yuan/ton, up 4.50 percent from the beginning of the year; the sales price of grade 4 rapeseed oil in Hubei was 8000 yuan/ton, up 1.27 percent from the beginning of the year; the sales price of 24-degree palm oil in Guangzhou was 4900 yuan/ton, basically the same as at the beginning of the year; and the ex-factory price of grade 1 peanut oil in Shandong was 14000 yuan, down 13.58 percent. 2. 2015 domestic grain supply and demand maintained a loose pattern in 1. Production. It is estimated that the national grain sown area will be basically stable at about 1.68 billion mu in 2015. Among them, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, the sown area of summer grain is expected to be 0.415 billion mu, an increase of more than 100 million mu over the previous year. Due to the overall favorable weather during the growth of summer grain, the total output is expected to achieve another bumper harvest. Comprehensive social grain and oil basic information survey data, the national winter wheat area is expected to be 0.339 billion mu, a year-on-year decrease; the national rice sown area is expected to be about 0.455 billion mu, which is the same as the year-on-year decrease, of which the early indica rice area is about 84 million mu, a year-on-year decrease of 0.6; the national corn sown area is expected to be about 0.568 billion mu, an increase of about 2.16. Due to the generally favorable weather in the main producing areas during the growth period, it is expected that the summer grain output in 2015 will be flat and slightly increase. Among them, the wheat output is expected to be 231 billion kg, an increase of 0.43 year-on-year. According to the survey, adverse weather occurred frequently during the growth of early indica rice in 2015, and the reduction in production is basically a foregone conclusion. It is estimated that the total yield of early indica rice in the country is about 62.34 billion jin, a year-on-year decrease of 4.82. In the period of maturity, harvesting, drying and purchasing in the main producing areas of early indica rice in the south, if there is large-scale rainfall during this period, it may cause the production of early indica rice after delivery, which is not conducive to the purchase, storage and quality assurance. 2. Supply and demand. In 2015, except for soybeans, there is still a large gap, the supply and demand pattern of other major grain varieties will be further relaxed. It is estimated that the annual balance will be more than 130 billion jin, and the domestic grain inventory will reach a record level. See by variety: wheat. Domestic wheat supply is expected to be higher in 2015/16 than in the previous year. According to the comprehensive investigation, it is estimated that the total output of wheat in 2015 will be about 231 billion kg, an increase of 1 billion kg over the previous year. However, due to the rainy weather in some main producing areas during the wheat harvest and listing in early June, the quality of some wheat was affected to a certain extent, especially in many areas of Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei and southern Henan. From the perspective of demand, domestic wheat consumption is expected to drop by 4.8 billion kg to 222.7 billion kg in 2015/16 due to the steady slight decrease in flour milling consumption and the decline in feed grain consumption, with an estimated new supply and demand balance of about 12 billion kg, and the domestic wheat supply and demand relationship continues to improve. Rice. Affected by various factors such as the sluggish macroeconomic situation, the continuous impact of imported rice, and the sluggish consumption of the domestic rice market, it is expected that the domestic rice market demand will decline slightly in 2015 compared with the same period last year. In the first half of the year, the progress of the national policy rice storage was slow, and the inventory continued to be at a high level. In addition, new rice was successively listed, and the domestic rice market was abundant. On the whole, it is expected that the supply and demand of the domestic rice market this year will be more relaxed than that of the previous year, and the annual balance will reach more than 30 billion kg. Corn. 2015 domestic corn sown area will continue to increase, is expected to increase by 12 million mu over the previous year. Affected by this, it is expected that the total corn output of the country will continue to grow without major natural disasters in the later period. Under this circumstance, affected by the sluggish macroeconomic situation and the slowdown in corn demand growth, it is expected that the domestic corn market will continue to maintain an oversupply pattern in 2015/16, and corn destocking will continue. Soybean and edible oil. It is expected that the domestic soybean production will decrease significantly in 2015, and the rapeseed production will also decline. The total national oilseed production will continue to decline this year. Under the influence of price difference benefit driven and the continuous growth of oil rigid demand, it is expected that China's oil import volume will continue to increase in 2015, but the growth rate will be smaller than that of the previous year. 3. 2015 domestic food prices will be stable, some varieties have downward pressure. In the second half of the year, the macroeconomic situation will continue to restrain food demand. It is expected that under the influence of sufficient national grain stocks, the successive listing of new grains, and policy-based purchasing and storage, domestic grain prices will be mainly stable as a whole, and some varieties will show a weak operating trend. It should be noted that the market rumors that the purchasing and storage policy of corn varieties may change, which will have a greater impact on the market price of corn in the new season. The factors that need to be focused on in the later stage are: first, the domestic and global macroeconomic situation; second, the policy grain and oil auction and storage policy changes; third, the weather changes in the main producing areas and the production of autumn grain. See by variety: wheat. It is expected that the domestic wheat market will show a narrow fluctuation in the later period. The main reasons are as follows: first, the wheat output has increased steadily and slightly this year, and the purchase of new wheat has been started and the scope has been expanded. However, due to the lower than expected quality of new wheat, the obvious difference between the north and the south has affected the enthusiasm of market purchase and sales. The purchase progress is obviously slower than that of the previous year, and the purchase volume of the supporting market is expected to be lower than that of the previous year. Second, the current downstream demand is weak, it is expected that there will still be no significant improvement in the second half of the year; third, due to the macroeconomic impact, the lack of funds in the hands of trading companies, and the lessons learned from the previous year, the enthusiasm for wheat purchases and grain holding is not high; fourth, policy wheat stocks are at a high level. The price of new grain has been suppressed. According to data from the State Grain Administration, as of the end of May, the national policy wheat inventory increased by 72% year. The main factors to be paid attention to in the later period are: first, the purchase progress and quantity of wheat in 2015; The second is the intensity and auction rhythm of policy wheat. The third is the adjustment of the purchase and sale price of policy wheat in 2016. Fourth, the price ratio change of wheat and corn and the substitution of feed; Fifth, the import of major grain varieties and related alternative varieties. Rice. It is expected that the domestic rice market as a whole will show a stable and weak trend in the later period, "new strong and weak", "excellent strong and weak" characteristics continue. The main reasons are as follows: first, the market supply and demand remain loose, and the de stocking progress is slow; second, the operating efficiency of processing enterprises is generally low, and the operating rate is lower than that of the previous year; third, the price level of rice after the listing of new grain will be slightly higher than that of the previous year, but the increase will not be too large; fourth, the global rice production in 2015 is expected to continue to increase, and the low price import rice in the domestic market, from January to May this year, my country imported a total of 2.023 billion catties of rice, a slight decrease of 0.144 billion catties year-on-year, but it is understood that the amount of rice entering the domestic market through border trade and smuggling is still large. The uncertain factors that still need to be paid attention to in the later period are: first, the weather conditions during the harvest of new early indica rice and the growth of mid-late rice, especially the impact of El Nino phenomenon on the production of mid-late rice in the south; The second is the changes in the price and quantity of imported rice in Southeast Asia, as well as the entry of other channels such as border trade. The third is the competitive sales of policy rice and the rotation of old rice. Corn. Low consumption and temporary storage policy adjustments are expected to continue to suppress domestic corn prices in the second half of the year. Although the reduction of grain sources in circulation outside the policy will support the domestic corn price in the third quarter, the adjustment expectation of the temporary storage policy in Northeast China in the new year and the listing of new grain will greatly restrain the domestic corn price in the later period. The main factors affecting domestic corn prices in the later period: First, the current policy corn inventory is huge. As of the end of May, the temporary storage corn inventory has increased by 50% year-on-year. Affected by this, the market can circulate grain sources before the new corn is listed will gradually decrease. Second, corn consumption is generally sluggish. According to the monitoring of the Ministry of Agriculture, the number of live pigs in 4000 monitoring sites dropped to about 0.386 billion in May 2015, while the number of breeding sows dropped to about 39.2 million, the lowest level in many years. At the same time, industrial consumption is also in a difficult situation due to the macroeconomic downturn, and the operating rate is difficult to rise significantly; third, the substitution of feed raw materials for corn has increased rapidly. Affected by the cost advantage of imported feed raw materials, the import volume of sorghum, barley and other varieties continues to increase. It is estimated that the import volume of sorghum and barley may reach 700-8 million tons and 500-6 million tons respectively this year. In addition, the large import of cassava has also formed a certain substitute for the consumption of corn industry. Soybean and edible oil. Against the backdrop of abundant global soybean stocks, as well as the expected continued increase in the area of new U.S. soybean crops, the global soybean supply is more relaxed in the later period, and international soybean prices are expected to continue to decline, leading to a subsequent weakening of domestic imported soybean port distribution prices. Domestic soybeans, in the new season soybean production is expected to continue to decline and the external soybean weakness under the combined effect of domestic soybean prices are expected to remain low narrow oscillation operation. In addition, affected by the gradual fermentation of the El Niño phenomenon, there is a possibility of a large reduction in oil production of palm oil, rapeseed and other oil varieties, and the situation of too loose global oil supply may be improved. Coupled with the obvious digestion of domestic oil stocks, these factors will obviously benefit the oil market and help oil prices to break away from the bottom and show a rebound trend. But in view of the domestic oil demand is still weak, oil prices overall rebound space will be limited. 4. international grain and oil supply and demand relationship to maintain a loose pattern according to the USDA's July supply and demand report, the global grain and oil supply and demand relationship remained loose in 2015/16, with world grain output expected to be 2.477 billion tons, down 0.62 percent from the same period last year. Consumption was 2.485 billion tons, up 0.83 percent from the same period last year. The final inventory was 0.523 billion tons, down 1.46 from the same period last year, and the inventory consumption ratio was 21%, down about 1 percentage point from the previous year, and remaining above the safety warning line. In addition, world oilseed production is expected to be 0.532 billion tons, down 0.77 per cent from the same period last year; consumption is 0.444 billion tons, up 1.96 per cent from the same period last year; and ending inventory is 0.1022 billion tons, up 7.52 per cent from the same period last year. Source: China Grain Network | Time: September 16, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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EU corn production has been revised down to an eight-year low.The monthly supply and demand data released by the French analysis agency Strategic Grain Company in September showed that the EU corn production forecast for 2015/16 was lowered to the lowest level in eight years. Strategic cereals this month cut its 2015/16 EU corn production forecast by 2.3 million tons to 57.4 million tons, the lowest level in eight years, as hot and dry weather affects the yield potential of corn crops. The very hot and dry weather in August further threatened the corn yield potential in central and southeastern Europe, especially Poland, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia, according to Strategic Grain. The latest maize yield data is 24% lower than the previous year, and the maize yield is expected to be 6.1 tons/ha. In contrast, the European Commission expects EU maize production to be 58.75 million tons per hectare in 2015/16, with a yield of 6.3 tons per hectare. Time: September 25, 2015 | Source: China Grain Network | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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Genetically modified and junk science~~GMOs and Junk Science • STANFORD - In today's media landscape, where unfounded opinions, hype, and rumors are rife, the scientific method - the means by which we determine, based on empirical and measurable evidence, what is true - should serve as a touchstone of reality. Science enables us to gauge what we think we know and to identify what we do not. Most important, it discredits false claims made for personal or political reasons - at least it should. But scientists occasionally “go rogue," forsaking the scientific method - often for notoriety or economic gain - to produce propaganda and to sow fear in a public that lacks expertise but is hungry for information. This abuse of scientific authority is especially widespread in the “organic” and “natural” food industries, which capitalize on people's fear of synthetic or “unnatural” products. A recent example is the Indian-American scientist V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, who, with Prabhakar Deonikar, published the much-ridiculed paper “Do GMOs Accumulate Formaldehyde and Disrupt Molecular Systems Equilibria? Systems Biology May Provide Answers." (“GMOs” are “genetically modified organisms," itself a misleading and often unfairly stigmatized non-category, circumscribing a universe of organisms modified with the most modern and precise techniques of genetic engineering.) Although the article supposedly passed the peer-review process, a key component of legitimate science, it appeared in a low-impact “pay-for-play” journal, Agricultural Sciences, which is produced by a “predatory” publisher. Within days of publication, anti-biotechnology organizations like the Organic Consumers Association and GMO Inside were reporting on Ayyadurai's “findings” with frightening headlines - “Formaldehyde in GMO Soy?" and “New Study Shows GMO Soy Accumulates Cancer Causing Chemical Formaldehyde” - accompanied by scary graphics. But the problems with Ayyadurai's paper are legion. Its title alone is enough to show that something is amiss. If you think that GMOs might “accumulate formaldehyde” - a chemical that is probably carcinogenic at high levels but is present in most living cells and found widely in our environment - the obvious response would be to measure its levels in the organisms. Ayyadurai, however, chose to make guesses based on modeling via “systems biology ." “Systems biology” enables only a prediction, not an experimental conclusion. Rather than actually testing the levels of any chemicals in plants, Ayyadurai plugged data into a computer algorithm to predict the levels of two chemicals, formaldehyde and glutathione. This is akin to a meteorologist predicting from his models that it will be sunny all day, instead of looking out the window to see whether rain is falling. To be sure, as Kevin Folta, the head of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, explained, systems biology can be a useful approach if employed properly. As he put it, systems biology “is a way to make predictions based on integrating existing data, and then statistically deriving a likelihood that the predictions may be correct." But, he emphasizes, the predictions are then to be tested, “and the systems approach validated ." Like all predictive studies based on computer modeling, the validity of the results depends on the integrity of the data and the algorithm. If the data are cherry-picked to support the modeler's desired conclusions, or if the algorithm is flawed, the results will be inaccurate. But it is unclear from Ayyadurai's article which data were used, and there is no validation of the model. Folta offers a brilliant send-up of Ayyadurai's work. “If you developed a computer program that integrated Internet data to predict the location of Munich, and the program told you it was squarely in the Gulf of Mexico, right off Florida, it does not mean that Munich is in the Gulf of Mexico, right off of Florida." Instead, it means that you have made a mistake, in your program, assumptions, or input data - all of which are testable. To decide not to challenge those data, Folta continues, and instead to “publish a map showing that Munich is squarely in the Gulf of Mexico, opposing all other data and the claims of millions of rather dry Germans, does not mean that you are brilliant. It means you have absolutely no clue, or more likely, have some reason you want a major German metropolis to be a two-hour boat ride from Tampa ." Folta also has something to say about Ayyadurai's publisher. If you print the deceptive map showing the location of Munich, “what does that say about your integrity as a reliable information source?" In the spirit of scientific cooperation, Folta offered to collaborate with Ayyadurai on university-based testing of genetically engineered corn and soy samples (along with appropriate controls), with analysis by an independent lab. Ayyadurai declined, so Folta will proceed himself. The experimental data is forthcoming. In the meantime, if you get a hankering for sauerbraten and spaetzle, head for Central Europe, not the Gulf of Mexico. Read more at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/gmos-junk-science-by-henry-i--miller-and-kavin-senapathy-2015-09#d35SrVf1KoBzOsBZ.99
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Brazil's total output value of agriculture and animal husbandry increased by 1% in 2014-2015According to statistics from the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture in August, Brazil's agricultural and animal husbandry output value from 2014 to 2015 was 473.2 billion reais, an increase of 1% from 2014 (468.6 billion reais), of which, the output value of the planting industry including 21 crops was 303.34 billion reais, an increase of 0.3 year-on-year; the output value of animal husbandry 169.88 billion reais, an increase of 2.2 year-on-year. In the area of cultivation, the largest increase in crop output was in onions, by 147.5 per cent, followed by black pepper by 58.6 per cent, soybeans by 3.7 per cent, corn by 3.4 per cent and coffee by 1.6 per cent; the largest decreases in output were in apple by 21.6 per cent, grape by 19.2 per cent, tomato by 13.8 per cent and potato by 8.8 per cent. Mato Grosso, as the largest agricultural and livestock producing state in Brazil, has become increasingly important. From 2014 to 2015, the GDP of agriculture and animal husbandry in the state was 62.37 billion reais, surpassing Sao Paulo state (61.21 billion reais) for the second consecutive year, ranking first among Brazilian states. Among them, the output value of cotton, corn, soybean and beef accounted for 89% of the total output value of agriculture and animal husbandry in Massachusetts. In 2014-2015, the output value of cotton, corn and soybean in Massachusetts accounted for 56.5, 24.5 and 29% of the national total respectively. In the second quarter, 1.105 million cattle were slaughtered in Massachusetts, surpassing South Malaysia, Minas, Goias and Sao Paulo. Source: Xinnong Network | Time: September 20, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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Since September 20, Ukraine has adopted EU standards for food safetyAccording to the "Act on Amendments to Certain Ukrainian Food Legislation" (№ 4179), which has been passed by the Ukrainian Parliament, most of the provisions related to EU integration have entered into force since September 20. The law aims to ensure the consistency of Ukrainian legislation with EU legislation in the field of food safety and quality. The new law provides for the introduction of a European system model for food safety and quality in Ukraine based on the principle of "from field to table" and the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) procedure. Without corresponding laws, Ukraine will not be able to implement the food supply quotas within the framework of the association agreement with the European Union. The new law significantly reduces the number of administrative control procedures and national regulations, and eliminates licensing procedures that are not available in the EU. The detailed requirements for the national regulatory procedures for food for the Ukrainian market and imported food have been clarified in accordance with EU practice. The conditions for obtaining a licence to operate have been significantly relaxed and will only apply to enterprises engaged in the production and/or storage of food of animal origin. For other enterprises, including public catering establishments and some retail establishments, it is sufficient to complete the registration procedures. According to the new law, food safety supervision will be the responsibility of a state agency. The entire food production chain will be under supervision. Enterprises need to have accurate information on the source of raw materials or food and the direction of delivery at any time. The above information must be kept for 6 months after the marked food sale deadline. Heavy penalties are imposed for non-compliance with food legislation. Implement an effective accountability system for producers, other market operators (within their business scope) and regulatory agencies that violate the standards of the Food Safety Law. Since the introduction of HACCP requires time and certain resources, the law contains special provisions that will enter into force 2-5 years after the date of publication. Part VII-General Hygienic Requirements for Food Handling will enter into force on September 20, 2016. This section requires market operators to ensure the health and cleanliness of plants and animals that have an impact on human health. The transitional period is set out in Chapter 20, Section 2 [for enterprises (except small enterprises) that produce food containing animal-derived raw ingredients], Chapter 21 [for enterprises (except small enterprises) that produce food without animal-derived raw ingredients] and Chapter 64, Section 1, Section 4 [for small enterprises], respectively: September 20, 2017, September 20, 2018 and September 20, 2019. Section 1 of Chapter 36 [Regarding the sale of household products in the agricultural product market based on the test results of the laboratory stationed in the agricultural product market to confirm their eligibility] will take effect on September 20, 2019. It is reported that the law "On the revision of certain Ukrainian food legislation" was adopted by the Parliament on July 22, 2014 and published in the "Voice of Ukraine" newspaper on September 19, 2014. HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) is a system of hazard analysis and critical control points adopted by international organizations. The use of HACCP system can be transformed from the final product detection to the development of preventive measures. In order to implement the HACCP system, manufacturers need to check not only their own products and their manufacturing methods, raw materials and accessories suppliers, distribution and retail systems also apply these requirements. Ukraine is currently implementing the national standard DSTU4161-203 "Food Safety Management System. Requirements" (since July 1, 2003) and the national standard DSTUISO22000:2007 (same ISO22000:2005. since August 1, 2007). Source: Xinnong Network | Time: September 20, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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Sino-American Corn War~~Corn Wars The farm-by-farm fight between China and the United States to dominate the global food supply. By Ted Genoways Illustration by Brian Stauffer August 16, 2015 On September 30, 2012, agents from the FBI contacted U.S. Customs and Border Protection at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago with an urgent request. They wanted bags from two passengers on an outbound flight to Beijing pulled for immediate inspection. The passengers didn't track as dangerous criminals: Li Shaoming, president of Beijing Kings Nower Seed Science & Technology, a large Chinese agricultural company that develops corn, rice, cotton, and canola seeds, and Ye Jian, the company's crop research manager. In Li's luggage, agents found two large Pop Weaver microwave popcorn boxes. Buried under the bags of unpopped snack kernels were roughly 300 tiny manila envelopes, all cryptically numbered-2155, 2403, 20362. Inside each envelope was a single corn seed. In Ye's luggage, agents found more corn seeds hidden amid his clothes, each one individually wrapped in napkins from a Subway restaurant. Customs officers were dispatched to the gate area for the Beijing flight, where they found the two men and conducted body searches. Still more corn seeds, also folded into napkins, were discovered in Ye's pockets. Meanwhile, at a different gate, Wang Hongwei, another Chinese national believed to be in the employ of Kings Nower (agents never learned if he worked for the company or was related to someone who did), boarded a separate flight for Burlington, Vermont, where he had a car waiting for him to drive to Canada. FBI agents were there to follow him-though Wang, after leaving the airport parking garage, made a series of abrupt turns and managed to give his surveillance team the slip. It didn't matter. Border patrol officers were waiting when Wang pulled up to the Highgate Springs port of entry along the U.S.-Canadian border. He was selected out for a search, which turned up 44 bags of corn seeds under his seat and in his suitcases, as well as a notebook filled with GPS coordinates and a digital camera containing hundreds of pictures of cornfields. Questioned by agents, Wang would say only that he had purchased the seeds from a man named Mo Hailong, the director of international business at the Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group (DBN Group), the parent company of Kings Nower Seed. Not wanting to alert Mo, agents allowed all three men to leave the country, but their corn seeds were confiscated. Special Agent Mark E. Betten, a 16-year veteran of the FBI specializing in the investigation of intellectual property theft, had the seeds sent to an independent bio-diagnostic testing laboratory, which confirmed that they were proprietary, genetically modified hybrids. Eventually, their genetic sequencing was matched to seeds under development by Monsanto, DuPont Pioneer, and LG Seeds, which, including LG's parent company, Groupe Limagrain, comprise three of the four largest seed companies in the world. The GPS coordinates were found to correspond with farms in Iowa and Illinois, where those companies were testing the performance of new hybrids. In December 2013, after collecting this evidence, U.S. marshals arrived at Mo's home in Boca Raton, Florida. He was taken into custody and extradited to Iowa, where he has been under house arrest in Des Moines ever since. The FBI also brought charges against five alleged co-conspirators, all Chinese, who remain at large, including the three men stopped by customs agents, and eventually against Mo's sister, Mo Yun, as well. Mo and his sister are scheduled to stand trial before a federal court in Iowa in September on charges of conspiracy to steal trade secrets. If convicted, they face up to ten years in prison and a $5 million fine. This may seem like a lot of post-September 11 cloak-and-dagger for a few corn seeds, but the U.S. government believes that something much larger is going on. This theft, they argue, stems from an undeniable and dangerous fact: Despite its remarkable landmass, China simply can't grow enough food to feed itself, particularly now that the country's burgeoning middle class has acquired an appetite for meat. (Most corn in China is used as feed for livestock.) Water shortages and lack of arable terrain have forced their government to buy between two and five million metric tons of American corn annually, approximately 94 percent of all corn imported into China each year. Daniel Acker / Bloomberg / Getty Luke Sharrett / Bloomberg / Getty If China hopes to feed (and pacify) its growing population while also loosening the very real stranglehold that America has on its national food supply, its farmers have to start producing a lot more corn-not just enough to meet their domestic demand in good years but enough to maintain a stockpile to offset their global market impact during bad ones. For decades, China has increased corn yields by putting more acres into production, but they're running out of arable land, and the USDA now estimates that Chinese corn consumption will rise by 41 percent by 2023, far outpacing production increases. The only tenable way for China to meet its own demand, then, is by planting high-performance hybrids, which can single-handedly double or potentially even triple per-acre corn production. Chinese scientists haven't developed a significant corn hybrid in years. But Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer, the two American seed giants, have produced so many successful hybrids that they now control 45 percent of all the seed sold in the world. The Department of Justice maintains that China is quietly permitting and even encouraging companies to steal American agricultural secrets right out of the ground. Acquiring the technology behind these next-generation hybrids could save companies like DBN Group-and the country-as much as a decade, and many millions of dollars, in research. And, plant geneticists familiar with the case told me, the very fact that Kings Nower Seed has brought to market-and intended to bring more-products with stolen genetics hints that the Chinese government is complicit. The theft is not hard to detect or prove; the only way that DBN Group could hope to get away with this scheme is if China were pushing such spying as a matter of policy. In fact, a 2011 report prepared by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, which advises the president on intelligence matters related to national security, listed “agricultural technology” among the targets “likely to be of greatest interest” to spies from Russia and China. “Surging prices for food," the report stated, “may increase the value of and interest in collecting U.S. technologies related to crop production, such as genetic engineering, improved seeds, and fertilizer." Since that report, the Department of Justice has cracked down, successfully prosecuting Chinese national Kexue Huang for stealing secrets related to organic fertilizer production and an unidentified “new food product” while he was employed at both Dow AgroSciences and Cargill, as well as Weiqiang Zhang, for theft of genetically engineered rice seeds from Colorado-based Ventria Bioscience. The federal government considers agricultural products both an asset and a weapon in a long-range geopolitical chess match with China. What makes the case against Mo Hailong stand out is that the FBI openly acknowledges that each step of its operation, each escalation of surveillance, was approved by a federal judge under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which requires that the investigating agency provide evidence that wiretapping is “necessary, or relevant, to the ability of the United States to protect against foreign threats to national security, such as attack, sabotage, terrorism, or clandestine intelligence activities." The federal government, thereby, has implicitly acknowledged that it considers agricultural products both an asset and a weapon in a long-range geopolitical chess match with China, a resource of near-military value and importance, one that must be protected by all available means. By that logic, those Chinese nationals stealing corn are spies, no different-and, indeed, perhaps more important-than those who swipe plans for a new weapons system. This may, at first glance, appear melodramatic-like Homeland in the heartland-but it is striking that the Department of Justice did not invoke FISA measures (at least not openly) in carrying out similar investigations into Dongfan Chung, a former Boeing engineer who stole trade secrets related to the Delta IV rocket and the Air Force's C- 17 aircraft, or Qing Li, who conspired to procure 30 military accelerometers, which, according to the government, “have applications in smart bombs, missiles, and calibrating g-forces of nuclear explosions." When asked about the extraordinary use of FISA in this case, Nick Klinefeldt, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, who is prosecuting Mo, chose his words carefully. “The agriculture industry is important," he said. “It's important not just to the state of Iowa but to the United States." In announcing the charges against Mo last July, Thomas R. Metz, special agent in charge of the Omaha Division of the FBI, went still further, saying that “identifying and deterring those focused on stealing trade secrets, propriety [sic] and confidential information, or national security information is the number two priority for the FBI, second only to terrorism." Think about that: The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI now contend, in effect, that the theft of genetically modified corn technology is as credible a threat to national security as the spread to nation-states of the technology necessary to deliver and detonate nuclear warheads. Disturbingly, they may be right. As the global population continues to climb and climate change makes arable soil and water for irrigation ever more scarce, the world's next superpower will be determined not just by which country has the most military might but also, and more importantly, by its mastery of the technology required to produce large quantities of food. The bureau's investigation of Mo Hailong began only after Mo made a stunning blunder. It was early May 2011, and Mo and Wang Lei, vice chairman of Kings Nower Seed at the time, were driving country roads in Tama County, Iowa, allegedly searching for a DuPont Pioneer test field. But apparently uncertain if he was in the right place or unsure of what kind of seed DuPont Pioneer was testing, Mo had Wang pull to the edge of a field, so they could question a farmer in the midst of spring planting. Mo and Wang told the farmer they had been attending an international agricultural conference at Iowa State and wanted to see someone planting a real cornfield. The farmer was dubious. Ames was nearly an hour away with nothing but expanses of cornfields in between, all at the peak of planting season. How had these two men chanced upon his field on the very day that he happened to be planting an experimental and top-secret seed under development by DuPont Pioneer? The next day, a DuPont Pioneer field manager spotted the same car. He watched Mo scramble up the ditch bank, and then kneel down in the dirt and begin digging corn seeds out of the ground. When confronted by the field manager, Mo grew flustered and red-faced. He now claimed to be a researcher from the University of Iowa-not Iowa State-on his way to a conference. But before the field manager could question him further, Mo fled. He jumped into the waiting car, and Wang took off, swerving through the grassy ditch before fishtailing onto the gravel road and speeding away. Mary Anne Andrei The genetic profile of the blue DuPont Pioneer inbred corn seed, one variety stolen by Mo Hailong in Tama, Iowa, is a closely guarded secret. Farmers planting them are forbidden from keeping the seeds or collecting kernels from the ears they produce, and must sign nondisclosure forms covering the details of their company-mandated planting plans. A few weeks later, agents from the Iowa office of the FBI sat down with DuPont Pioneer representatives for a standing meeting (which itself says something about the importance our law enforcement officials place on our corn) at their corporate headquarters in Johnston, Iowa, a northern suburb of Des Moines. A DuPont Pioneer executive mentioned the incident and explained that the company enters into exclusive contracts with farmers to grow proprietary and often genetically engineered seeds. The exact genetic sequence of successful seeds is a tightly held secret, worth many millions of dollars. The DuPont Pioneer field manager had written down the license plate number and handed it over to company security. Multinational food conglomerates like DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto have sizable security forces and highly efficient investigatory networks. They traced the plates back to a rental car company at the Kansas City airport. Representatives there said the car had been rented by Mo Hailong. According to court documents, an unnamed vice president and general manager from DuPont Pioneer's Chinese subsidiary told the FBI he already had reason to believe that Kings Nower Seed was somehow stealing the company's experimental seeds in order to raise clones for sale to Chinese farmers. DuPont Pioneer had recently discovered that one of DBN Group's best-selling corn seed products in China shared genetic sequencing with a male parent line that the company had genetically engineered. The executive had confronted a DBN Group executive, sarcastically congratulating him on the success of their product. The Chinese executive had allegedly cracked a knowing smile and nodded, which the DuPont executive had taken as a tacit admission. The FBI agreed to investigate. Four months later, while the FBI was still looking into the Tama incident, a call came into the sheriff's office in Polk County, Iowa, with a report of three Asian males walking around a cornfield in Bondurant, just outside of Des Moines. Despite the strangeness of such a call, the responding deputy hurried to the field, approached the men, and took down their names: Mo Hailong Robert (Mo occasionally used the alias Robert Mo), Wang Lei, and Li Shaoming, the CEO of Kings Nower Seed. The men acknowledged that they were Chinese seed growers but claimed they were there to offer advice to the owner of the farm. When the FBI learned of the report-and recognized Mo's name-they dispatched an agent from the Omaha field office to interview the farmer. He had never heard of the three men, much less sought their advice. He told the agent he didn't even know what kind of corn he was growing, other than to say he was under contract to Monsanto. Soon after, a Monsanto field representative confirmed that this, too, was a test site for a new parent seed the company had under development. With an emerging picture of what Mo was up to, the FBI began tracking his movements-and soon discovered that he and Wang were intending to travel together to Des Moines for events held in connection with the World Food Prize. The morning after their arrival, on February 15, 2012, the security team at DuPont Pioneer called the FBI to report “they were confident” (in the words of the subsequent report) that Mo, using an alias and fake corporate affiliation, had joined a delegation visiting their headquarters. The FBI collected the surveillance video of the tour inside DuPont Pioneer's research lab and also identified Mo on corresponding security footage from the delegation's tour of a Monsanto research facility in Ankeny later in the day. That night, agents tracked Mo to a state dinner hosted by Iowa Governor Terry Branstad in honor of Xi Jinping, then the vice president of China and now the president. The next day, Mo and Wang went together to a sports bar near the hotel where they were staying in the Des Moines suburbs. They met up with Xaoming Bao, a Chinese seed executive and former DuPont Pioneer employee whose wife was employed by the company as a corn-genetics researcher. FBI investigators could now demonstrate that Mo had, on two separate occasions, sought to obtain experimental seeds by collecting them from secret test sites, and furthermore, it appeared he had gained the information about how to find those locations by working with corporate insiders. The FBI also discovered that while he was in Iowa, Mo had shipped hundreds of pounds of packages from a West Des Moines UPS location to his home in Boca Raton. The contents listed on the tracking sheet: “corn samples ." Mary Anne Andrei Drought-resistant corn hybrids on display at a DuPont Pioneer sales center near Cairo, Nebraska. The theft of high-performing corn seeds from a competitor's fields is as old as the cultivation of corn. “They say that a good plant breeder always had lots of pockets," said Donald J. Lee, a professor and plant geneticist in the department of agronomy and horticulture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “And when he would go visit his neighbor's plant breeding fields, they always came back full." Until recently, farmers were their own seed providers. Lee told me his grandfather, a farmer in Iowa a century ago, would select ears from each harvest to provide the seed for planting the next year. He recorded the quality of his yield, slowly identifying a set of seed characteristics that seemed to produce the best crop. In those days, it was not unusual for family and friends to share seed stock. “Maybe a neighbor would say, 'Hey, I really did good with this seed that I got from a cousin in eastern Iowa. You should try a little of this,'" Lee said. “But they were all open-pollinated populations, so those seeds were not genetically identical. In fact, probably every seed was genetically distinct ." So much genetic variability meant that farmers like Lee's grandfather would cross two varieties and get large, robust ears one year, only to find that the same two varieties produced scraggly cobs with missing kernels and dead tips the next. “So if you take a look at the historic yields of corn in Iowa and Nebraska during the teens, the twenties, the thirties-it's flat," he said. That all changed with the arrival of Henry A. Wallace, the founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred Seeds, who Lee described as “the Bill Gates of the seed industry." Wallace, the son of the longtime president of the Cornbelt Meat Producers, first encountered the problem of genetic variation while studying corn breeding at Iowa State Agricultural College. Rediscovering Gregor Mendel's groundbreaking research on pea pods, Wallace had the key insight that the only solution to producing hearty corn hybrids was to first create genetically pure inbred varieties that could be used as “parents” year after year. Wallace initially worried that such an approach “was probably impractical because of the difficulty of doing the hand-pollinating work," but he was won over by a paper published in 1918 by Donald Jones, a chemist at the Connecticut Agricultural Station's experimental farm. Jones had successfully inbred two separate varieties of corn and then crossed them to produce a durable, high-performing hybrid. Wallace recognized that this was the key to creating seed corn with consistently higher yields, but the old problem remained: Producing these hybrids would be far too complex for the average farmer to undertake alone. Wallace began to envision an organized way of breeding and distributing high-performing corn seed to farmers across the Midwest. A man of unusual commitment to the common good, he wrote a friend that he did not consider himself a corn breeder but rather “a searcher for methods of bringing the 'inner light' to outward manifestation." So Wallace at first conceived of a nonprofit organization, potentially run with government cooperation and even public funding. In 1921, his father, Henry C. Wallace, was appointed secretary of agriculture and might have helped spearhead such an effort. But after his father died unexpectedly at age 58 and Calvin Coolidge settled into the laissez-faire years of his presidency, Wallace saw little chance of an ambitious national program gaining traction. He decided instead, in May 1926, to start the Hi-Bred Corn Company-the world's first hybrid seed producer. To interest farmers, Roswell Garst, Wallace's lead salesman, who later became a major seed producer in his own right, went from one farm to the next, across 16 counties in western Iowa, giving away enough eight-pound sample bags of Hi-Bred seeds for farmers to plant half their fields. Whatever additional yield the hybrid corn produced, Pioneer would split fifty-fifty with the farmer. After several years, farmers realized that they would see greater profits by simply buying the bags of seeds, instead of sharing the surplus yield with the company. Those shared harvests produced something even more valuable than profit for the young company: information about how the seeds performed under different growing conditions. Wallace directed a sizable chunk of his revenue back into research, hiring a team of new corn breeders to devise still more hybrids. In the early 1930s, Perry Collins, one of Wallace's researchers, developed Hybrid 307-the first corn specifically developed and marketed for drought-resistance, hitting seed dealerships just as the country spiraled into the Dust Bowl. And when Wallace was, like his father, appointed secretary of agriculture, by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, he finally had the resources to nationally evangelize for hybrid seed, which he believed had the potential to rescue the nation from the Great Depression. The transformation that followed was staggering. When Wallace joined Roosevelt's cabinet, less than 1 percent of America's corn came from hybrid seeds. A decade later, more than three-quarters of all corn was grown from hybrids-nearly doubling the national per-acre yield over the next 20 years. To keep this record output from depressing corn prices, Wallace created the “ever-normal granary," under which the federal government would establish a federal grain reserve. In years of high production, the Department of Agriculture would buy corn and store it to keep prices up. In years of crop loss, the government would release the reserve to keep prices down. Wallace's plan was hugely popular, stabilizing American food prices-and winning him a spot as FDR's running mate in 1940. But Wallace's remarkable Hi-Bred Corn had one significant drawback: It consumed far more nitrogen compounds from the soil than ordinary corn-more, in fact, than almost any other crop. During the war years, the government solved the problem by simply putting more acres into production, but after World War II, the Department of Agriculture found a different solution. Giant chemical manufacturers, like DuPont and Monsanto, had secured wartime defense contracts to produce ammonia nitrate and anhydrous ammonia to make bombs and other munitions. They had developed an herbicide known as 2,4-D as a potential destroyer of German crops and manufactured the insecticide DDT to prevent the spread of typhus-carrying lice among GIs. As soon as the war was over, DuPont turned to marketing those same chemicals for lawn and garden use as fertilizer, weed killer, and DuPont 5% DDT Insect Spray. Company advertisements from the period touted their products as “Better Things for Better Living … Through Chemistry." But gardens were just the tip of the iceberg. DuPont, along with other giant chemical manufacturers like Dow and Monsanto, teamed up with the grain cartels, including Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland, to lobby for congressional support for producing these compounds as large-scale agri-chemicals. In 1953, the industry found its greatest ally, when Ezra Taft Benson took over as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of Agriculture. (Wallace, by then, had retired from public life. He was briefly the editor of the New Republic before making a failed bid for the presidency in 1948.) Benson, a high-ranking member of the Mormon Church and a fanatical Red Scare Republican, immediately informed Eisenhower that he was philosophically opposed to the government price supports developed by Wallace, because, to his mind, they were tantamount to socialism. He publicly referred to small farmers as “irresponsible feeders at the public trough." Foreshadowing today's aggressive, pro-corporate agricultural policies, Benson argued that the only way to outcompete the collective farms of the Soviet Union and Red China was to use our superior corn and chemical technology to the fullest. The United States could, if it chose, overproduce corn to drive down international prices, and it could use the surplus as a tool of diplomatic leverage in the form of foreign aid. Instead of guns, the United States began to give our allies grain-transforming, for the first time, a food product into a weapon in the national arsenal. The only problem was that by effectively militarizing American agriculture, Benson made agri-tech a target for foreign spying. In April 2012, Mo flew from his home in Florida to O'Hare International Airport and rented a car. An FBI surveillance team followed him as he drove along back roads through rural Illinois and northern Indiana. After about a week of this, Mo stopped one day at a farm near Monee, Illinois, advertising DuPont Pioneer seeds for sale. The farmer there later told the FBI that Mo had asked about what types of corn and soybeans he could buy, explaining that he had purchased 40 acres nearby and was planning to plant the property. The surveillance team followed Mo to a farm about 15 minutes west of Monee, where, a review of property records soon revealed, Kings Nower Seed had purchased a parcel for $600,000 only the month before. As agents watched Mo crisscross the Midwest, stopping at seed stores to inquire about different products, they began to suspect that he planned to plant the Illinois acreage by hand. Donald J. Lee, the University of Nebraska professor, compares stealing parent seeds to obtaining programming code without knowing what application it is intended for or what operating system it's meant to run on. Likewise, knowing the genetic structure of a corn seed is just one part of the problem. “You don't know the importance of those genes, unless you have yield data," said Lee. “When did the plant mature? What's its development profile? How did it respond to such-and-such disease?" This is what Mo appeared to be doing: setting up his own covert test farm, one that he could oversee personally. --advertisement -- FBI surveillance teams followed Mo to Crossroads Ag, a DuPont Pioneer seed dealer in Dallas Center, Iowa, and observed him loading bags of seeds into his trunk. When investigators questioned the owner, he said Mo paid in cash-more than $1,500-for six bags of Pioneer Hi-Bred corn seeds. He said Mo had been purchasing seed there for two years, always asking for DuPont Pioneer's “latest products," but this year he had arrived with a detailed list. The owner had told Mo that he wasn't supposed to sell him some of the specific products he was asking for, unless he had a contract agreement with DuPont Pioneer, which the owner knew he didn't. The next day, FBI surveillance watched Mo repeat the process, buying six bags of DeKalb brand seed corn, a Monsanto product, at MFA Agri Services in Pattonsburg, Missouri. Finally, the team followed Mo back to Adel, Iowa, where Mo unloaded some of the seed bags at a storage facility before driving on to the farm in Illinois where the remaining bags were unloaded and, the FBI believes, seeds may have been planted. About one out of every 200 seeds in a bag of hybrid corn seed is a parent, which can be identified by planting the bag and then collecting kernels from whichever plants look different from the rest. Investigators believe Mo may have been collecting some parent seeds this way. Later, when Mo and two DBN Group employees attempted to FedEx the remaining corn seeds to an associate in Hong Kong, the FBI intercepted the packages and conducted a search of the five boxes. Each contained eight or nine gallon-sized baggies filled with seed corn, along with a handwritten numerical code identifying each hybrid. The FBI has not revealed exactly when they applied to a FISA court for more broad-ranging investigatory powers, but the FBI's court filings show that their information on Mo and his associates became much more detailed after meetings with DuPont Pioneer executives over the summer. Top executives told agents that “the loss of an inbred line of seed would result in losing approximately five to eight years of research and a minimum of $30 to $40 million dollars, potentially much more." After that, the FBI tapped the men's mobile phones and tracked Mo's bank records. They collected their email from Yahoo, Google, and Hotmail, corporate documents from DropBox, and thousands of files from Mo's Apple iCloud account. The FBI used Mo's mobile phone to track his movements, bugged his rental cars to eavesdrop on his conversations, and installed a video camera outside the storage unit in Adel. To exercise such investigatory power, the FBI had to argue that Mo was an “agent of a foreign power”-or, in other words, to persuade a judge that Mo might be acting on behalf not just of DBN Group but at the direction of the People's Republic of China. With that, the FBI had the authority to treat Mo as if he were the leader of a state-sponsored Chinese spy ring. (Klinefeldt, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, was evasive about whether that suspicion proved substantive. “When you start an investigation," he said, “you don't know exactly where it will lead.") The theft of high-performing corn seeds from a competitor's fields is as old as the cultivation of corn. FBI investigators soon got the explicit evidence they needed to make arrests. Over a listening device installed in an Enterprise rental car, the surveillance team recorded a bizarre and inept conversation between two of Mo's associates from DBN Group, Lin Yong and Ye Jian. In the translated transcript, submitted as part of the government's case, the two men are consumed by worry that they are being followed and about the charges they could face if caught. So, as they drive around rural Illinois looking for DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto test fields from which to steal, they begin making a list of the crimes they have committed. After some back and forth, they come up with trespassing for every time they have slipped onto private property, larceny for the seeds and ears they have been stealing from the fields, and multiple violations of intellectual property protections. “These are actually very serious offenses," Lin says. “They could treat us as spies !" Ye interjects. Lin, exasperated, responds: “That is what we've been doing !" Soon after, with the harvest season nearly complete, Mo seems to have decided it was time to send to China what corn he and his associates had collected. The group drove back to the secret Illinois farm and began discussing how they would divvy up the seeds. Some would go into checked bags bound for Beijing, others would be carried to a car and driven across the border from Vermont into Canada, and some would go with Mo back to Florida, where he would ship them to China. With tickets booked for departure the following morning, the five men readied their caches of seeds-Li deciding to stash his under packets of Pop Weaver microwave popcorn. The whole group then piled into a white minivan and drove into Monee to eat at the local Subway. On their way out, one of the men, perhaps Ye, must have stuffed his pockets full of napkins. When Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the United States at President Eisenhower's invitation in 1959, he specifically requested to see only one man: Roswell Garst, the former Pioneer seed salesman for Henry A. Wallace, who was then head of Garst and Thomas Hi-Bred Corn Company. Khrushchev had met Garst once before, when he visited the Soviet Union, and had become obsessed by the potential of hybrid corn. Khrushchev and his wife spent a day at Garst's farm near Coon Rapids, Iowa. In his memoirs, Khrushchev later wrote, “Garst gave me an entire lecture on agriculture," in which he earnestly explained that American farmers had stopped worrying about crop rotation. “Science today considers that approach outdated. And I think so, too," Garst told the Soviet leader. In past years, planting the same crop repeatedly would have attracted pests and depleted the soil of nitrogen. “Now there is no such problem. We have herbicides and other such chemical substances that make it possible to combat pests," Garst said. And there was no longer any need to plant clover or alfalfa to accumulate nitrogen. “It is more profitable for me to buy nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, in mix form, and add this fertilizer ." On that same official visit, Ezra Taft Benson led Khrushchev on a tour of the U.S. Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland. Benson, in his official remarks, said that there was a “constant give-and-take of information between government scientists and those in private industry," adding that “we are all working together within the framework of our capitalistic free-enterprise society to benefit our farmers, all our citizens, and people throughout the world." He listed hybrid corn first among the achievements of such cooperative efforts and introduced white-coated lab researchers who extolled the virtues of 2,4-D and chemical fertilizers. Khrushchev was unimpressed by a visit he made to a farm owned by President Eisenhower, dismissing it as “not on a scale such as we have at our collective farms and state farms." Benson later remembered that Khrushchev bragged, “We won't have to fight you. We'll so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands." Benson vowed that American farms would outproduce the Soviets through superior chemistry. By the end of the Eisenhower era, however, environmentalists began to raise concerns about the hundreds of commercial herbicides and pesticides being applied to American crops in quantities totaling hundreds of millions of pounds. Benson admonished doubters that “abandoning the use of chemicals on farms and in the food industry would result in an immediate decline in the quantity and overall quality of our food supply and cause a rapid rise in food prices paid by the consumer." Even when Rachel Carson documented connections between DDT and 2,4-D and elevated incidence rates of rare forms of cancer in Silent Spring, Benson remained unmoved. He is said to have written to Eisenhower wondering “why a spinster with no children was so concerned with genetics," and then, as if to answer his own question, offered that Carson was “probably a Communist." (The Eisenhower Presidential Library, for what it's worth, contains no record of this letter.) Henry A. Wallace's scientific breakthroughs with cross-breeding corn varieties revolutionized agriculture in the United States. Wallace, at bottom, was an idealist who believed hybridized corn would feed the world. Benson's war on the “socialist” price supports and farm aid programs instituted by Henry A. Wallace stalled out during the liberal-minded 1960s. But at the advent of the new decade, President Richard Nixon appointed Earl Butz, Benson's former assistant, to become the new secretary of agriculture. Butz had grown up on a farm in Indiana and spent 30 years teaching agricultural economics at Purdue before becoming dean of the university's College of Agriculture. Many small farmers hated him, because he had been such a vocal advocate for turning family farming into big business during the Eisenhower administration. His refrain for those families, famously, was: “Get big or get out ." Almost as soon as Butz won approval from Congress, he canceled payments for fallow land and urged farmers to “plant fencerow to fencerow," promising to use the emerging global economy to buttress against low prices. If our supply threatened futures, we would simply go to the world market and use our size and economic might to meet the demand and forge foreign dependence on American food in the bargain. We would defeat the Communists by making them dependent on us to feed themselves. In January 1972, Butz sold what amounted to our entire grain reserve to the Soviets. The following month, Nixon went to China and brokered a deal with Chairman Mao Zedong, allowing the importation of American corn and securing contracts for American companies to build 13 of the world's largest ammonia-processing plants for producing fertilizer on Chinese soil. America's Communist foes regarded these moves as an agreement not to wage war through food. But Butz discussed these moves in terms of “agri-power," and stated it plainly: “Food is a weapon." To open a new front in the conflict, he supported maintaining American food superiority through yet another innovation: bioengineering feed, such as corn and soybeans. Through the miracle of science, the United States would not only produce more crops than our rivals; we would produce better crops. By 1972, scientists had already developed the ability to cut and splice protein strands in the DNA sequences of bacteria. If they could do the same with plant cells, then they could chemically insert resistance to weeds and insects. Less than five years later, a team from the University of Washington discovered that a bacterium that causes tumorlike growths on plants did so by inserting its own DNA into the cell nuclei of its host plant. What they had discovered was essentially a natural form of gene splicing. By the 1980s, researchers had devised techniques for removing the bacteria genes and inserting desirable DNA sequences. The U.S. government recognized this as technology the Soviets and Chinese could not match. Monsanto was also quick to see the market opportunity. The company had grown with the production of 2,4-D and its descendant 2,4,5-T, which were then combined to produce Agent Orange to defoliate forest cover during the Vietnam War. In 1970, in an effort to come up with an even stronger plant killer, Monsanto chemist John E. Franz hit upon an herbicide called glyphosate, which was marketed under the trade name Roundup and had seen unmatched growth in broadleaf weed control in the agricultural industry. The only problem with Roundup: It was such an effective herbicide that farmers had to apply it carefully, spraying only early sprouting weeds, to avoid exterminating their crops. Monsanto's engineers set about searching for a gene that would allow crops to survive exposure to Roundup. They found it in the wastewater-treatment plant of one of their own glyphosate production plants in Louisiana, where workers had noticed a range of bacteria thriving despite exposure to Roundup-and one, under lab testing, displayed total immunity to glyphosate pesticides. By 1996, Monsanto had commercially introduced soybeans that had been genetically modified to resist glyphosate-what the company termed “Roundup Ready." Next, researchers set to trying to find a genetic-engineering solution to the European corn borer, an insect that inflicted more than $1 billion in losses of corn production in the U.S. and Canada each year. Since the 1960s, endotoxins produced by Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a common bacteria found in the soil, had been sold as a commercial microbial insecticide to kill moth larvae. If the specific DNA that produced Bt toxins could be isolated and spliced into corn genetic sequences, scientists believed they could create an ear of corn that would be lethal to the European corn borer. Soon, that hurdle had been cleared, and Monsanto began looking for a seed partner to market its pest-resistant corn. If it could marry its genetic modifications with Pioneer's hybrid seeds, Monsanto believed it would have a corn seed with unmatched yield potential. In the early 1990s, perhaps too eager to demonstrate the effectiveness of its new GMO crops, Monsanto allowed Pioneer to use its biotech to produce Roundup Ready soybeans and Bt corn-asking only for small usage fees and no royalties. For less than $40 million, Pioneer suddenly had the technology and the sales muscle to move toward genetically modified feed crops, a growth market worth many billions of dollars. Rather than partner with Monsanto, Pioneer became its greatest competitor, entering into a joint venture with DuPont, called Optimum Quality Grains. In response, Monsanto launched a series of bitter and protracted lawsuits, and eventually, in 1999, Pioneer sold its entire remaining stock to DuPont (thus changing the name to DuPont Pioneer). In 2002, all eleven lawsuits were settled at once-as DuPont Pioneer realized that it had more to gain by paying for Monsanto's genetics and focusing on capturing the Chinese market. In the years since, DuPont Pioneer has increased its share of the corn-seed market in China from less than a tenth of a percent to 12 percent. (Monsanto has a 1 percent market share.) DuPont Pioneer has told Chinese officials that they should Americanize their agriculture: consolidate land, plant GMO seed, apply industrial fertilizers, subsidize the sale of planting and harvest equipment. This way, the company argues, China could dramatically increase its per-acre yield. William S. Niebur, who leads DuPont Pioneer's operations in China, told the Des Moines Register last year that officials have listened to these recommendations with an “open ear ." In March 2015, Mo Hailong's attorneys filed a motion to suppress all evidence gathered from the secret recordings made of Mo and his associates, arguing that the authorization to gather those materials should never have been granted. In order to legally justify the use of FISA, surveillance must target an “agent of a foreign power," and the purpose of the surveillance must be to gather “foreign intelligence information." Mo's attorneys argue there is no evidence that Mo is an agent of the Chinese government or that his company is backed by China, so for “the first time in the statute's history (as far as our research reveals), the [U.S.] government used FISA to investigate a trade secret dispute between two privately owned companies ." When it comes to the Chinese form of capitalism, the line is undeniably murky. The government has taken a strong hand in recent years in encouraging the growth of China's agricultural sector. In 2013, for example, China's Shuanghui International entered an overvalue bid to buy Smithfield Foods, the world's largest producer of pork. Under questioning by Congress, Smithfield insisted the purchase came without the urging or backing of the Chinese government. But after the purchase received congressional approval, Nathan Halverson at the Center for Investigative Reporting discovered that the Bank of China, the state bank of the Chinese government, had approved the $4 billion loan for Shuanghui to purchase Smithfield in a single day-and in China, Shuanghui has touted the support the government is giving them. In the wake of that purchase, the Chinese government has been actively consolidating the country's seed companies, which currently number more than 5,000. This consolidation would centralize research, improving China's ability to develop its own hybrids to compete with giants like DuPont and Monsanto, and it would also allow China to mimic the field-to-slaughter vertical integration that has given meat producers like Smithfield and Cargill such an advantage in the United States. DBN Group is a notable example of a seed company that is booming thanks to consolidation and government assistance. Founded in 1994 by seed-tech whiz kid Shao Genhuo, DBN Group has recently acquired more than 30 feed operations from the Chinese government, and the company runs China Farmer University jointly with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. By targeting Mo and his sister Mo Yun as the leaders of the spy ring, the FBI may hope to incriminate Shao (who is married to Mo Yun)-and, ultimately, implicate Chinese agriculture ministers. But the U.S. government's argument that the technology behind Roundup Ready soybeans and Bt corn constitutes not just trade secrets but national security secrets is a problematic one. Companies like DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto like to maintain that they are striving only to feed a burgeoning global population. Last year, Niebur, of DuPont Pioneer China, asked, “Without China's food security, how can we ever imagine an effective, realistic, sustainable global food-security system?" But DuPont Pioneer's goal, of course, is not global food security or feeding the Chinese people, but rather increasing market share and profit by keeping China as a customer. And the Department of Justice has taken up the argument that such a goal is not only of importance to our economy but a matter of national security, an unsettling conflation of the interests of large corporations with that of the country itself. Today, it's estimated that 92 percent of American corn and 94 percent of American soybeans are GMOs, almost all of it produced by Monsanto or DuPont Pioneer, and again, nearly half of the seed sold globally. Activists in both China and the United States have raised concerns about just two corporations having so much influence over the world food supply, with so little transparency. (Despite repeated requests, DuPont Pioneer declined to participate in this story.) But these fears, while well founded, miss the larger point of what such companies represent: the intent of the U.S. government to use food as an ever-more powerful point of leverage to wield over large, increasingly hungry nations like China. The prosecution of Mo Hailong and his circle stands as a warning to the Chinese government, issued through its proxy companies. The ears in the field, the seeds in the ground, even the pollen on the wind, are American-owned and American-protected. They are available to the world as food only if you agree to our conditions and are willing to pay our price. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122441/corn-wars
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Vietnam Encourages Farmers to Develop Cashew Planting and ProcessingIn the first eight months of 2015, Vietnam exported 214000 tons of cashew nuts, with an export value of US $1.55 billion billion, an increase of 8.4 and 22% respectively, and an increase of 13% in export prices. The United States, the Netherlands and China continue to be Vietnam's top three cashew nut export markets, with export shares of 36.55 per cent, 12.43 per cent and 11.95 per cent, respectively. Vietnam has become the world's largest exporter of cashew nuts. According to the Vietnam Cashew Association, at present, the raw materials of cashew nuts grown in Vietnam are difficult to meet the processing demand, and the price of cashew nuts raw materials is higher than the import price due to the shortage of supply. According to the report, Vietnam's cashew nut planting area ranks fourth in the world, mainly distributed in Pingfu, Tongnai and Lam provinces, with planting areas of 182000 hectares, 50000 hectares and 25000 hectares respectively. In order to encourage farmers to carry out the "big farmland" planting mode and combine processing and sales, the Vietnamese government provides the following preferential policies: credit preference; investment in water conservancy and infrastructure construction; farmers' technical training fees, etc. Source: Agricultural Information Network | Time: September 9, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang
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Sri Lanka has great potential to generate foreign exchange through agricultural developmentAt the recent Sri Lankan economic summit, Prime Minister Lanier expressed his goal of 50 billion exports throughout the year. Up to now, the foreign exchange income of the country has reached 11 billion billion US dollars, and a series of effective measures need to be taken to achieve the annual target. The planting area of crops in the country is about 800000 hectares, and 30% of the foreign exchange income comes from the agricultural sector. An increase in the productivity of the agricultural sector would contribute significantly to the growth of foreign exchange earnings. In the past few years, the foreign exchange income of the agricultural sector has been increasing, mainly due to the increase in the cost of export products. The export of crops such as tea, rubber, coconuts and spices is the country's main source of foreign exchange income. The export value increased from US $2 billion in 2010 to US $2.8 billion in 2014. However, the production of these crops has not increased accordingly. For example, the production of tea in 2010 was 331.4 million kg, and the production from 2011 to 2014 was 327.5 million kg, 328.4 million kg, 340.1 million kg and 338.1 million kg respectively. Between 2010 and 2014, both rubber and coconut production declined. One of the main reasons for the decline in average yields of tea, rubber and coconut is land degradation. Therefore, to promote agricultural development, the implementation of appropriate land protection measures is very important. Since many trees have aged and lost their productivity, increasing the rate of re-planting can increase productivity to some extent. In addition, effective management will increase productivity, which in turn will increase foreign exchange earnings, including better fertilization, weeding and pest control, diversification of cultivation, improved production methods and increased value-added production. In addition to tea, rubber and coconut, there are a large number of other crops with potential export value, such as pepper, cinnamon, garden flowers and so on. In 2013, the spice crop earned $0.35 billion. There are 24 agro-ecological zones, each with unique climate and soil characteristics, which provide conditions for the cultivation of different crops. Of the 6.5 million hectares, there are 2 million hectares of wetlands, 75% of which are planted with crops, but most are less productive due to land degradation. Of the 4.5 million hectares of dry land, only 200 hectares are effectively used. As a result, large areas of potentially arable land exist in arid areas. Most soils in these areas are relatively more fertile than those in the wetlands. Insufficient precipitation during the dry season is one of the main constraints to crop growth in arid areas, so good water supply management will reduce this constraint. Currently, major irrigation projects such as Mahawilli, Kilindi Eurasia (Kirindioya), Mutu Kaindia (Muthukandiya) and Ian Genimidiya (Inginimitiya) have provided irrigation needs for 200000 hectares of land in arid areas, and a large number of small irrigation projects will also provide conditions for these areas. Therefore, it has great potential to improve the level of crop production. In addition, the agricultural product processing industry also plays an important role in earning foreign exchange. At present, the agricultural products processing industry involves only a small number of crops such as rubber, coconut and some fruits. Cassava, gardening flowers, herbs, sugar cane, bamboo, sunflower, castor, Ayurvedic herbs and other crops have potential processing value, but have not yet developed into any obvious commercial value through processing market demand, neither obvious variety improvement, nor related processing technology and market information. Therefore, promoting the development of agro-industry will not only provide new channels for export income generation, but also provide opportunities for economic development and job creation in rural areas. Source: Agricultural Information Network | Time: September 10, 2015 | Responsible Editor: Zhai Tianchang