Growing Trouble or Bad News in a Rice Bowl

Remember how Zimbabwe became Zimbabwe? Successful immigrants created rich bountiful efficient farms in a land they called Rhodesia. The problem was the immigrants were white. Rhodesia being in Africa had to be black. That was the skin tone of politics at the time. The Brits, pale and white in those days, were going through some anglo angst and decided white things in Africa were bad. So the west in wightful indignation decided to destroy Rhodesia and they did. Wowy-zimbowy we ended up with a true hell hole and lots of trouble. What does this have to do with China?

China is loaded with cash and loaded with people. The people are smart, hard working and global and in case you didn't notice, Chinese. The Chinese have been buying into overseas resources in major ways. They are now venturing into the social and political mine fields of farm land. You can guarantee that some of the major future crops will be resentment, jealousy and social upheaval.

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China eyes overseas land in food push
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing

May 8 2008 Financial Times

Chinese companies will be encouraged to buy farmland abroad, particularly in Africa and South America, to help guarantee food security under a plan being considered by Beijing.

A proposal drafted by the Ministry of Agriculture would make supporting offshore land acquisition by domestic agricultural companies a central government policy. Beijing already has similar policies to boost offshore investment by state-owned banks, manufacturers and oil companies, but offshore agricultural investment has so far been limited to a few small projects.

If approved, the plan could face intense opposition abroad given surging global food prices and deforestation fears. However an official close to the deliberations said it was likely to be adopted.

“There should be no problem for this policy to be approved. The problem might come from foreign governments who are unwilling to give up large areas of land,” the official said.

The move comes as oil-rich but food-poor countries in the Middle East and north Africa explore similar options. Libya is talking with Ukraine about growing wheat in the former Soviet republic, while Saudi Arabia has said it would invest in agricultural and livestock projects abroad to ensure food security and control commodity prices.

China is losing its ability to be self-sufficient in food as its rising wealth triggers a shift away from diet staples such as rice towards meat, which requires large amounts of imported feed.

China has about 40 per cent of the world’s farmers but just 9 per cent of the world’s arable land. Some Chinese scholars argue that domestic agricultural companies must expand overseas if China is to guarantee its food security and reduce its exposure to global market fluctuations.

“China must ‘go out’ because our land resources are limited,” said Jiang Wenlai, of the China Agricultural Science Institute. “It will be a win-win solution that will benefit both parties by making the maximum use of the advantages of both sides.”

In the first quarter of this year, food prices in China rose 25 per cent from a year earlier, the highest level of farm inflation since the early 1990s, said UBS.

China is still a net exporter of agricultural commodities but is increasingly reliant on soybean imports and is about to become a net buyer of corn.

It imported up to 60 per cent of the soybean it consumed last year and the crop would be a focus of policy support for companies acquiring land overseas, along with bananas, vegetables and edible oil crops, said an official familiar with the ministry’s proposal. The ministry is already talking to Brazil about the possible acquisition of land for soybean, according to this official.

Some countries would find it particularly problematic if Beijing supported Chinese firms to use Chinese labour on land bought or rented abroad – common practice for most companies operating overseas.

Made in China. Was your Catfish Hooked on Drugs?

When you hear the word, “Icelandic”, one thinks of clear cold fjords, clear crisp air and water, and an unspoiled clean environment. All of which is true. Iceland is what you expect it to be. Seafood from Iceland is excellent. However, we may have an issue here.

Seems as if there is a seafood company called Icelandic USA, which sells US consumers catfish from China. China is about as un-Icelandic as you can get. The only fjords in China are mispelled automobiles. In many places, China is an open sewer, especially the southeast. It is polluted, the air is hideous and the waters may be fit to rinse iron slag but trust me on this one, you do not want your catfish grown in them.

This article in the Washington Post should get lots and lots of attention. It represents a real dilemma with some crucial aspects of free global trade. Free trade between very different cultures can have some very dangerous consequences. Food quality is just one of them.

American growers, farmers and industry operate with many tough and expected regulations designed to protect the American consumer. Free trade with China has ruined many of these producers and made them look like fools to try and compete with a China disconnected from even rudimentary responsible business practices. Better start reading your labels.

Farmed in China's Foul Waters, Imported Fish Treated With Drugs
Traditional Medicine, Banned Chemicals Both Used
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 6, 2007; Page A01

WUGONG LAKE, China -- Perched above the banks of the catfish farm he owns is Zhu Zhiqiu's secret weapon for breeding healthy fish: the medicine shed. Inside are iodine bottles, vitamin packets and Chinese herbal concoctions that he claims substitute for antibiotics.

Zhu's fish farm, in a village on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, sends about 2.7 million catfish fillets each year to the United States through an importer in Virginia. Despite his best efforts -- he has dozens of employees clearing trash from the water each day, and the fish are fed sacks of fish meal more expensive than rice -- Zhu's fish sometimes get sick. Then he brings out the drugs.

"It's standard practice," he said. "Everyone uses them to keep fish healthy."

Chinese exporters like him have seized much of the U.S. market, accounting for 22 percent of all imports, because their fish are cheaper to raise.

The fish are being raised, however, in a country whose waterways are an ongoing environmental problem, tainted by sewage, pesticides, heavy metals and other pollutants. The situation is worst in the southern half of the country, where Zhu's farm is and where industrial runoff accumulates.

Like other fish farmers throughout the world, catfish growers in China turn to a variety of potions. But the extent to which they use traditional Chinese medicine, which cannot be tested for as easily in the Western countries that import fish, is unusual. Zhu claims to use only safe and legal drugs, but it was clear that some of his competitors have not been so scrupulous.

The competitors spike the water with banned substances to keep their farmed fish alive. Batches of seafood traded at the Shanghai fish market this week, for example, carried the tell-tale greenish tinge of malachite green, a disinfectant powder that has been banned in China for five years because it is a suspected carcinogen but is still commonly used.

Illegal substances like malachite green keep showing up in Chinese seafood shipped to the United States, provoking a partial U.S. ban on such shipments last week. It was the latest development in an ongoing global awakening about the risks of Chinese-made products, from toys tainted with lead paint to pet-food ingredients containing a deadly industrial chemical.

Using illegal disinfectants and antibiotics "is a lazy way of raising fish," Zhu said. "But it is extremely effective."

Many of the "Southern-style" catfish fillets on U.S. grocery shelves these days are indeed from the south -- of China.

US Food Quality not up to Chinese Standards

More from the people that put melamine in wheat by-products to increase the apparent protein count, and shipped tooth paste and cough medicine with industrial diethylene glycol misused as a sweetener.

China destroys U.S. imports on safety grounds

Reuters, The Associated Press IHT
Published: June 8, 2007

BEIJING: Raisins and health supplements imported from the United States failed to meet Chinese safety standards and have been returned or destroyed, the country's food safety agency said Friday.

The move comes as China itself faces international criticism, especially in the United States, over a series of scandals that have plagued Chinese food, drugs and other products from poisoned cough syrup to tainted toothpaste and pet food.

Inspectors in the ports of Ningbo and Shenzhen found bacteria and sulfur dioxide in products shipped by three American companies, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.

"The products failed to meet the sanitary standards of China," the agency said in a brief notice posted on its Web site. No details were given on when or how the inspections were conducted.

The agency said it was asking "all local departments to increase quarantine examinations of foods imported from the United States."

Telephones at the administration's office were not answered on Friday.