At the end of last year, the Chinese Communist Party announced in high profile that there had been 17 consecutive years of good grain harvests, but strangely enough, China’s grain imports have been at a record high every year for several years, and Xi Jinping has not only repeatedly asked the nation to save grain last year, but also proposed to overcome technical difficulties in seed research and development, and it turns out that China’s dependence on foreign seeds exceeds 70%.
Global Food prices rise to a 7-year high
Let’s take a look at why the recent global food prices have risen sharply?
According to the price index released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, as of February this year, global food prices hit a six-year high and have risen for nine consecutive months, up 26.5% year-on-year. The last Time there was such a rapid increase was 10 years ago.
And with the rise in food prices, almost all food prices, including vegetables, cooking oil, sugar, dairy products and meat, are rising, with many hitting their highest values in recent years.
Probably one of the primary reasons for this is the Epidemic, which has been going on for more than a year now, which has hit food production and transportation globally and affected the food supply chain.
Secondly, the anomalous weather factors and natural disasters that have led to a decline in production in the United States, Ukraine, Brazil, Argentina, Vietnam, India and other such grain producing areas.
The third reason is that global grain stocks have fallen to the lowest level in five years, while countries are prioritizing the supply of their own food.
There are also some reasons, that is, the global central bank monetary over-issuance, resulting in Inflation, as well as international speculative capital to take advantage of grain production reduction expectations, taking the opportunity to speculate greatly, etc.
Mainland China’s significant imports foretell a food crisis?
For mainland China’s food situation, the sharp rise in global food prices has added fuel to the fire, so to speak. Why do you say so?
Because mainland China’s food shortages began to emerge more than a decade ago, and are now getting worse. In 2014, mainland China officially became the world’s top food importer. Since 2015, mainland China has imported more than 100 million tons of grain every year.
And according to information released by the General Administration of Customs of the Communist Party of China, in 2020, the cumulative import of grain from mainland China exceeded 140 million tons for the first time, an increase of about 28% year-on-year. Among them, soybean imports directly crossed the 100 million ton mark, and there were two other record-breaking ones, one was corn imports of 11.3 million, more than double the previous year, and the other was wheat imports of 8.38 million tons, in addition to a 60.4% increase in meat imports.
Of course, the Chinese Communist Party does not recognize the food shortage. In December last year, the Communist Party said that China’s grain production had achieved “17 consecutive bumper crops” and that there were sufficient stocks. Mainland China’s grain production has remained above 1.3 trillion jins for six consecutive years, and last year it reached 1,339 billion jins.
But why did the Communist Party increase imports so much when grain production increases every year? If the increase in production is true, does it mean that even if there is a good harvest every year, it still cannot make up for the grain shortage?
In the past year, the CCP has repeatedly emphasized food security. In July last year, Xi Jinping also emphasized that “food security should be given prominence” during his visit to Jilin, followed by various food-saving campaigns across mainland China.
In August last year, the Institute of rural Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences also mentioned that by the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan, that is, by 2025, mainland China may have a grain deficit of 130 million tons, of which the deficit of the three major staples: rice, wheat and corn is about 25 million tons.
In an interview with the official media, Yuan Longping, a famous Chinese hybrid rice expert, also confessed that “there is not enough food in mainland China” and “if other countries don’t sell, there will be trouble”.
Mainland China’s food crisis may be more serious than imagined
But behind these superficial messages, the food crisis in mainland China may be even worse. Why do you say that?
A few days ago, the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a notice calling for adjustments to the structure of feed formulas to reduce the proportion of corn and soybean meal in feed, and for the completion of a demonstration and promotion program by the end of April, with demonstration and promotion to take place during the year.
What does this notice indicate? First, it indicates that there may be a shortage of feed on the mainland, and second, to avoid competition with people for food, and the notice requires the completion of the promotion program within 40 days, also indicates that the current food security problem on the Chinese mainland is already imminent.
In addition, the CCP’s “War Wolf diplomacy” has led to a stalemate in relations with several food exporting countries. However, the Chinese Communist Party still wants to increase imports significantly, so you can imagine the embarrassing situation. Here are two examples.
We know that Canada is the world’s largest producer of canola, but the Chinese Communist Party has revoked the licenses of two large Canadian canola exporters in 2019 in order to retaliate against Canada over Meng Wanzhou. However, as of December 2020, mainland China’s purchases have more than doubled to 1.2 million tons, so much so that Canadian canola has sold out of stock and exploded, with prices rising to a nearly 13-year high.
Then there is the new Cold War between the U.S. and China, but according to a report released by the U.S. government in October 2020, the Chinese Communist Party has purchased more than $23 billion in agricultural products, or roughly 71 percent of the first phase of the U.S.-China trade agreement target. 2020 saw record or near-record sales of many U.S. agricultural products to mainland China.
Just a week ago, on March 16, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) also said that the Chinese Communist Party signed the largest U.S. corn purchase order since January.
Could the Chinese Communist Party have “put its foot down” so much if it wasn’t really facing a food security crisis?
The seed crisis is worse than the food crisis
However, behind the food crisis lies a bigger seed crisis.
On February 21 this year, the Chinese Communist Party issued another “No. 1 document” on agriculture, which mentioned that seeds are the foundation for agricultural modernization and proposed to make the seed industry in mainland China a world leader.
In the economic meeting last December, Xi Jinping already stressed the need to carry out technological research on seeds. It seems that seeds have, indeed, become a major dilemma for mainland China’s agriculture.
At that time, the media reported that food security is a major national strategic need, but also the cornerstone of national security and stability, mainland China has a lot of seeds are still “stuck”, to increase the research and development of seed technology and major product development, breeding major new varieties of plants and animals, to enhance food production capacity.
According to information released by the China Continental Seed Trade Association (CNSTA), between 2014 and 2019, mainland China’s seed imports are 66,000 tons, exports are 25,100 tons, mainland China’s dependence on “foreign seeds” reached 72%.
In the vegetable seeds, the dependence on foreign countries is more serious, such as peppers, onions, carrots, eggplant, tomatoes, etc., these common dishes on the people’s table in mainland China, many of them are grown from foreign seeds, and even some basically rely on imports. In 2019, mainland China’s vegetable seed imports were $224 million, accounting for more than half of the total imports of crop seeds.
In terms of major cereals, according to official data, such as the three major staples of corn, the main production areas of Northeast and North China are now basically using the U.S. DuPont Pioneer’s “Centaur 335”, and for more than a decade. And in recent years, including the top ten global seed industry, including more than 70 international seed companies have entered mainland China.
As foreign improved seeds with high yield, good quality and other advantages, now China has suffered from “foreign seed dependence”, the majority of crops in mainland China almost rely on imports, has lost seed autonomy. Once the supply is cut off, it will have a significant impact on agricultural production and exacerbate China’s food crisis.
So, how can the CCP solve this problem? One way is to steal and cheat. For example, more than 70% of Taiwan‘s vegetable and fruit seeds are said to have been transferred to mainland China. Likewise, the CCP has never stopped stealing seeds from the U.S. and Japan, even when they are caught in the act of stealing in the field.
In 2011, DuPont Pioneer in Iowa caught a man named Mo Hailong, who was on his knees digging in the ground, trying to dig up DuPont Pioneer’s genetic corn. After investigation, it was learned that the man, Mo Hailong, had previously stolen seeds from Monsanto and LG Seeds, the giant agricultural companies, and had hidden them in his own test fields for experiments.
The company’s identity was also revealed, and his brother-in-law was the founder of Beijing‘s Great Northern Agriculture Technology Group, Shao Genghuo, who was finally sentenced to three years in prison.
What are the dangers of hybrid and genetically modified seeds?
Since ancient times, farmers in mainland China have kept their own rice and vegetable seeds, each village has its own seeds, and after the annual grain harvest, farmers choose the particularly good ones left as seeds. So the seeds are self-produced. These villages could continue their production and livelihoods even if the sky and earth fell elsewhere.
But now, farmers are gradually abandoning the self-saved seeds, why? Moreover, it is said that most of these seeds are “sterilized seeds” produced by seed companies. This “sterile seed” produces food that cannot be selected, so the next year, farmers are forced to buy seeds again, and in some parts of mainland China, they even use highly controversial genetic seeds.
Take the most imported soybeans in mainland China as an example, the single yield of soybeans in mainland China is only 60% of that of the United States, the reason is the seeds. The genetically modified soybean seeds from Monsanto in the United States have the property of resisting herbicides, and whenever weeds grow wild, the weeds are eliminated by spraying herbicides by airplane, while the soybean still continues to grow.
So let’s talk a little more about this genetic seed. Will the genetically modified seeds we eat be harmful to our bodies? We don’t know yet because of the timing of the current study.
However, species such as hybrid rice, seedless watermelon, genetic modification, gene editing, etc., just like mules, have the so-called “hybrid advantage”, but because the germ cells do not develop, they do not have the ability to reproduce, and therefore lose their adaptability to the environment. For example, a mule can grow to its mother’s size of 5 years old at the age of 1, and is particularly strong, but this “hybrid advantage” is at the cost of the germ cells not developing.
However, the Chinese ancestors have continued a custom of not eating food that is not fertile, so the folklore has spread the saying of “no mule meat to death”. Because the mule’s chromosomes are 63, an odd number, can not be paired, can not meiosis, so the reproductive cells simply can not develop.
So by the same token, when a crop is not fertile, will it affect human fertility? We see that there are data showing that people, nowadays, are becoming more and more infertile, could it have something to do with our food?
“A grain of corn is planted in spring and ten thousand seeds are harvested in autumn”, this was originally the heritage of our human society for thousands of years and the joy that traditional farming brought to the working man, but not anymore, this natural native cycle system in nature has been destroyed and food has lost their roots that connect them to heaven and earth.
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