Archive for ‘agriculture’

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31/12/2013

Tainted farmland to be restored |Society |chinadaily.com.cn

Farming of contaminated arable land almost the size of Belgium has been halted and the land will be rehabilitated to ensure food security, a senior official said on Monday.

Tainted farmland to be restored

A soil survey by the Ministry of Environmental Protection found that pollution affects about 3.33 million hectares, Wang Shiyuan, vice-minister of land and resources, said.

\”This finding is similar to the geographical environmental survey by the Ministry of Land and Resources,\” Wang added.

Arable land in China totaled 135.4 million hectares at the end of last year, 15 million hectares more than the bottom line set by the government to ensure food security, Wang said at a news conference, citing the results of the second national land survey released on Monday.

However, the amount of stable cultivated land will drop to 120 million hectares, as some farmland will be converted to forests, grasslands and wetlands, while pollution will leave some land unusable, Wang said.

The environment ministry earlier declined to disclose data related to soil pollution, saying further investigation is needed and that the figure is a State secret.

A nationwide survey on soil pollution was carried out between 2006 and 2010, led by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land and Resources, but the results were never made public.

Bai Chengshou, deputy head of the nature and ecology conservation department at the environmental protection ministry, said results will be published in future, with more data included.

\”The current work is to take more samples in key areas with severe soil pollution, so that the results can be more accurate and representative,\” he said.

Bai said a \”soil pollution action plan\”, similar to the Airborne Pollution Action Plan (2013-17) released by the central government in mid-September, is being prepared.

He said the plan, which will provide a detailed framework for national soil pollution control measures before 2017, is likely to be released around June after being approved by the State Council.

Wang said the swaths of polluted farmland are concentrated in developed eastern and central regions and in the northeastern industrial belt.

He singled out Hunan province which, with its booming heavy industries, had repeatedly reported much higher levels of cadmium found in rice than permitted by national standards.

Answering a China Daily question on whether the tainted land is still being farmed, Wang said no further planting will be allowed on it, as food safety is a top concern for governments at various levels.

Each year, the central government will earmark several billion yuan to rehabilitate farmland tainted by heavy metals and threatened by the over-draining of underground water, Wang said, without giving details.

\”Only rehabilitated farmland that has passed assessment will be used again,\” he said.

via Tainted farmland to be restored |Society |chinadaily.com.cn.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2013/12/30/china-says-more-than-3-million-hectares-of-land-too-polluted-to-farm-south-china-morning-post/

Posted in agriculture, China alert, Ecology, Economics, Environment, food safety, Green, Pollution | Leave a Comment »

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30/12/2013

China says more than 3 million hectares of land too polluted to farm | South China Morning Post

About 3.33 million hectares (8 million acres) of China’s farmland is too polluted to grow crops, a government official said on Monday, highlighting the risk facing agriculture after three decades of rapid industrial growth.

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China has been under pressure to improve its urban environment following a spate of pollution scares.

But cleaning up rural regions could be an even bigger challenge as the government tries to reverse damage done by years of urban and industrial encroachment and ensure food supplies for a growing population.

Wang Shiyuan, the vice-minister of land and resources, told a news briefing that China was determined to rectify the problem and had committed “tens of billions of yuan” a year to pilot projects aimed at rehabilitating contaminated land and underground water supplies.

The area of China’s contaminated land is about the same size as Belgium. Wang said no more planting would be allowed on it as the government was determined to prevent toxic metals entering the food chain.

“In the past there have been news reports about cadmium-contaminated rice – these kinds of problems have already been strictly prohibited,” he said.

This year, inspectors found dangerous levels of cadmium in rice sold in the southern city of Guangzhou. The rice was grown in Henan, a major heavy metal-producing region.

China’s determination to squeeze as much food and resources as possible from its land has put thousands of farms close to chemical plants, mines and other heavy industries, raising the risks of contamination.

With food security still the most pressing concern, China is determined to ensure that at least 120 million hectares (295 million acres) of land is reserved for agriculture, a policy known as the “red line”. The rehabilitation of polluted land is part of that policy.

A government land survey revealed traces of toxic metals dating back at least a century as well as pesticides banned in the 1980s, and state researchers have said that as much as 70 per cent of China’s soil could have problems.

via China says more than 3 million hectares of land too polluted to farm | South China Morning Post.

Posted in agriculture, China alert, Economics, food safety, Pollution | 1 Comment »

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25/12/2013

China to deepen rural reforms – Xinhua | English.news.cn

Chinese President Xi Jinping addresses the central rural work conference in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 23, 2013. China pledged to deepen rural reforms and step up agricultural modernization, according to a statement issued after the central rural work conference which ended on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

BEIJING, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) — China has pledged to deepen rural reforms and step up agricultural modernization, according to a statement issued after a central rural work conference which ended on Tuesday.

The two-day meeting was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang and senior leaders Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli.

Central government policy on the countryside, agriculture and farmers has been effective in arousing enthusiasm in the new century and has boosted the development of agriculture and the countryside, the statement said.

Reform started in the countryside and rural growth has contributed much to the leap from being barely fed and clothed to moderate prosperity.

\”When defining a moderately prosperous society, the key is to observe the condition of farmers,\” the statement said.

It must be noted that agriculture is still the weakest among the four pursuits of industrialization, informatization, urbanization and agricultural modernization. The countryside still lags behind, the statement said.

\”If China wants to be strong, agriculture must be strong. If China wants to be beautiful, the countryside must be beautiful. If China wants to get rich, the farmers must get rich,\” the statement said.

Tackling problems in the countryside should be at the core of work of the central authorities, the statement said.

FULL BOWLS OF RICE

Populous as China is, the task of simply feeding the people remains a high priority, the statement said.

\”The bowls of the Chinese, in any situation, must rest soundly in our own hands. Our bowls should be filled mainly with Chinese grain. Only when a country is basically self-sufficient in food, can it take the initiative in food security and grasp the overall situation for economic and social growth,\” it said.

China has set a red-line guarantee that arable land never shrinks to less than 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares). The line should be strictly followed, the statement stressed.

To ensure the farmers profit from grain planting and the key production bases are active in encouraging farmers to plant grain, more efforts should be made to link agricultural subsidies with grain output, it said.

IRREPLACEABLE RURAL FAMILIES

To stick to the central authorities\’ rural policies, the first lies in the basic rural management system.

Rural land is owned by the peasantry collectively and this is the \”soul\” of the rural basic management system, the statement read.

Collective land should be contracted by rural families, namely members of the collective economic organizations.

No other party can substitute the rural family status in contracting land and no matter how the right to contract for management is transferred, the right to contract collective land belongs to rural families, it said.

\”The subjects of the rights to contract for management will grow apart from the subjects of the rights to manage. This is the new trend for China\’s agricultural production relations,\” the statement stressed.

The rural basic management system must improve

The rural land management rights transfer, land concentration and scale land use should move in proportion to urbanization and changes of rural labor, as well as technological progress and social service in agriculture.

SAFER FOOD, BETTER VILLAGES

The government has vowed to improve agricultural product quality and food safety. The environment where agricultural products grow will be improved, the statement said.

If any farmland or water is seriously polluted, the area should be taken out of use, and supervision should be stepped up on food safety.

The government has also pledged to enrich the peasantry and take care care of their children, women and the aged left behind in villages, as many of their families might be working in cities.

\”Soil culture\” shall not be ruptured, as villages were sources for the Chinese traditional civilization and the countryside shall by no means turn into \”desolate villages, left-behind villages or hometowns alive only in memory,\” the statement said.

via China to deepen rural reforms – Xinhua | English.news.cn.

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04/12/2013

UK and China agree £45m pig semen export deal | World news | theguardian.com

So that’s how the £5bn trade deal is made up!

“Britain has won the right to export pig semen to China in a deal worth £45m a year.

A pig

Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, who is accompanying David Cameron on his trip to China, has also embarked on negotiations to export pigs\’ trotters – a local delicacy – to China.

Under the deal with China, the \”porcine semen\” can be flown to the country in frozen and fresh form. Pigs will not be flying but their seed will take to the air.

A No 10 spokesperson said: \”We\’re doing all we can to ensure that businesses up and down the country reap the rewards from our relationship with China. And that includes our pig farmers. This new deal to export pig semen will be worth £45m to UK firms and means Britain\’s best pigs will help sustain the largest pig population in the world.

\”And we\’re not stopping there, we\’re talking to the Chinese about serving up pigs trotters on Beijing\’s finest dining tables. That would be a real win-win – a multimillion pound boost for Britain and a gastronomic treat for Chinese diners.\”

The exports start in the first quarter of next year. Four UK artificial insemination centres, based in England and Northern Ireland, will start making preparations for the exports in the new year.

Half of the world\’s pigs are in China but the country needs to improve pig genetics. A government source said: \”China has an interest to increase the efficiency of their production, while minimising the environmental impact of increased production. The UK industry for pig production can play a large and important role in helping China achieve greater efficiency through the provision of high-quality genetic stock.”

via UK and China agree £45m pig semen export deal | World news | theguardian.com.

Posted in agriculture, China alert, Economics, exports | Leave a Comment »

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21/11/2013

Is Land Reform Finally Coming to China? – Businessweek

China’s leaders raised a multitude of reforms as priorities at the plenum that closed a week ago. A key one, a change in land ownership so that farmers can more freely rent, sell, and mortgage their land, is hoped to boost China’s still laggard household consumption.

A farmer harvesting rice in Xizhou county, China

“The Party leadership has given its blessing to land reforms that should shift more income to rural households. Change will happen slowly but the result should be a boost to consumer spending,” wrote Mark Williams and Julian Evans-Pritchard, economists at London-based Capital Economics in a Nov. 20 note.

The present system dates back to the early days of the People’s Republic and classifies all rural land as collectively owned. That murky status restricts farmers from selling the land they live on, while local governments are largely free to take it—sometimes forcibly—and convert it to industrial and commercial uses, providing a key source of their income.

Authorities usually sell the seized land for 18 times what they paid the farmers, estimates Li Ping, senior attorney at the Beijing office of Landesa, a Seattle-based nonprofit that focuses on land-rights issues. This contributes to rising social instability, with farmers protesting land grabs, and it keeps the rural population poor, Bloomberg Businessweek reported earlier this year.

It can’t all be labeled rapacious land-grabbing, however. With local governments responsible for 80 percent of spending, including for their citizens’ education, health, and pensions—but getting only about 40 percent of China’s total tax revenues, according to World Bank estimates—the reliance on alternate sources of revenues such as land sales is understandable. According to China’s Ministry of Finance, local governments’ land-sale proceeds totaled 2.67 trillion yuan ($438 billion) last year, equivalent to more than half their total tax revenue, Bloomberg News reported on Sept. 24.

“With farmers and collectives now barred from selling rural land, expropriation of land has been a significant source of revenue for local governments,” wrote the Capital Economics economists. “They rezone it for commercial, industrial or residential use, add some infrastructure and sell it on. Industrial firms are often offered land at a low price as an incentive to set up in an area. Local governments benefit by taxing these firms’ activities.”

via Is Land Reform Finally Coming to China? – Businessweek.

Posted in agriculture, China alert, Economics, Good news, land transfer, Politics | Leave a Comment »

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01/11/2013

Chinese land reform: A world to turn upside down | The Economist

MORTGAGING a village home is a sensitive issue in China. A nervous local official has warned residents of Gumian, a small farming community set amid hills and paddies in Guangdong province, that they risk leaking state secrets if they talk to a foreign reporter about the new borrowing scheme that lets them make use of the value of their houses. They talk anyway; they are excited by what is going on.

Urban land in China is owned by the state, and in the 1990s the state allowed a flourishing property market to develop in the cities. That went on to become a colossal engine of economic growth. But rural land, though no longer farmed collectively, as it was in Mao’s disastrous “people’s communes”, has stayed under collective ownership overseen by local party bosses. Farmers are not allowed to buy or sell the land they work or the homes they live in. That hobbles the rural economy, and the opportunities of the farmers who have migrated to the cities but live as second-class citizens there.

Hence the importance of experiments like those in Gumian. Cautious and piecemeal, they have been going on for years. Some are ripe for scaling up. Handled correctly, such an expansion could become a centrepiece of Xi Jinping’s rule.

On October 7th Mr Xi said the government was drawing up a “master plan” for not just more reform, but a “profound revolution”. Such talk is part of the preparations for a plenum of the Communist Party’s Central Committee which will begin on November 9th. It is the third such meeting since Mr Xi came to power; because the first two plenums of a party chief’s term are given over largely to housekeeping matters, including party and government appointments, third plenums are the ones to watch.

And Mr Xi is marking this one out as particularly important. In private conversations with Western leaders he has been comparing the event to the third plenum that, in 1978, saw Deng Xiaoping’s emergence as China’s new strongman after the death of Mao two years earlier, and set the stage for the demise of the people’s communes. Indeed “profound revolution” is a deliberate echo of a phrase of Deng’s.

via Chinese land reform: A world to turn upside down | The Economist.

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25/09/2013

China gets stake in Russian potash giant to secure supply

A few days ago, China acquired vast areas of farming land from Ukraine, now it is acquiring a secure source of fertiliser.  It’s determined that the population gets fed!

Reuters: “China acquired a 12.5 percent stake in Russian potash producer Uralkali (URKA.MM) in a deal that could help Beijing secure stable supplies of the soil nutrient, put new pressure on prices and reduce the chances of a Russia-Belarus cartel being revived.

A general view of a Uralkali potash mine near the city of Berezniki in the Perm region close to Russia's Ural mountains August 26, 2013. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

The investment by China’s $575 billion sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp (CIC) CIC.UL is the latest twist in a saga that began when the world’s leading potash producer quit the lucrative sales partnership with Belarus in July and led to the company’s chief executive being jailed.

Under the deal, Uralkali said on Tuesday that CIC had received the stake in a bond exchange deal with Wadge Holdings Ltd, which belongs to three shareholders including oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

The deal is a rare example of China, the world’s largest consumer of potash, acquiring direct ownership of Russian natural resource assets, although it is only the latest in a series of commodity-related investments by CIC.

It also coincides with speculation that Kerimov might sell his 21.75 percent holding over a dispute that has soured Russia-Belarus relations.

Uralkali sent the $20 billion global potash market into turmoil when it quit the marketing alliance with state-owned Belaruskali. Belarus hit back by arresting CEO Vladislav Baumgertner after talks with the country’s prime minister.

Some investors believe the Kremlin wants to repair the alliance to avert a possible collapse in the price of potash, which accounts for 12 percent of Belarus’s state revenue.

“I can see little chance that the government would allow the Chinese fund to acquire a much larger stake,” said Boris Krasnojenov, an analyst at Renaissance Capital in Moscow.

“There is no similar precedent in Russia, and the eventual buyer would probably be a Russian player.”

There are no negotiations to sell Kerimov’s personal stake to CIC, a source close to the businessman told Reuters.”

via China gets stake in Russian potash giant to secure supply | Reuters.

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23/09/2013

Food security law may leave out many dalits, tribals

Times of India: “A good number of dalits and tribals may be left out of the ambit of the ambitious Food Security Act, with the socio-economic caste census reporting lesser number of households of the two communities than found by the decennial census, a fraught prospect that has led to jitters in the government.

As per the preliminary figures of socio-economic caste census (survey),1702 tehsils across 27 states have fewer SCs and STs than found in the decennial population census 2011. The census figures of SC/ST population exceed the survey numbers by 1%.

It implies that fewer SCs/STs would be part of the poverty list to be shortlisted by the much-awaited survey. Once finalized, the survey is to serve as the blue book of poor households for entitlement schemes and its first big use would be in the implementation of food security scheme that Congress has called a “game-changer”.

The discrepancy has been found in the poorest states like Bihar (124 tehsils), Madhya Pradesh (163), Odisha (132) as also in Andhra Pradesh (450) and Maharashtra (154). However, the absolute number of households in Andhra is not high because the tehsils are small in size, sources said.

According to sources, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has shot off letters to 26 chief ministers and the administrator of Daman and Diu, seeking proactive initiative to detect omissions.”

via Food security law may leave out many dalits, tribals – The Times of India.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/political-factors/indian-tensions/

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22/09/2013

Ukraine to become China’s largest overseas farmer in 3m hectare deal

SCMP: “China will plough billions of yuan into farmland in Ukraine that will eventually become its biggest overseas agricultural project.

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The move is a significant step in China’s recent efforts to encourage domestic companies to farm overseas as China’s food demand grows in pace with urbanisation.

Under the 50-year plan, Ukraine will initially provide China with at least 100,000 hectares – an area almost the size of Hong Kong – of high-quality farmland in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, mainly for growing crops and raising pigs.

The produce will be sold to two Chinese state-owned grain conglomerates at preferential prices. The project will eventually expand to three million hectares.

Ding Li, a senior researcher in agriculture at Anbound Consulting in Beijing, said the deal was a big move for China compared with earlier overseas agriculture.

In April 2009, China had slightly over two million hectares of farmland abroad, he said. “So three million hectares would mean a very big project.”

The agreement was signed in June between the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and KSG Agro, Ukraine’s leading agricultural company, XPCC said in a statement.

XPCC, also known as Bingtuan, is a quasi-military organisation established in Xinjiang in the 1950s to reclaim farmland and consolidate defences against the Soviet Union, whose “granary” at that time was, ironically, the Ukraine.

The statement did not reveal the value of the investment, but the Kyiv Post reported last month that it would be more than US$2.6 billion. The newspaper called it an “unprecedented foreign investment” in Ukraine’s agriculture sector.

This would make it China’s biggest reported lease or purchase of farmland overseas. The Beidahuang Group, China’s largest agribusiness, based in Heilongjiang province, and the Chongqing Grain Group have made similar moves to expand abroad.

The farming project was an important part of China’s food security programme and a response to the central government’s strategy of outsourcing the production of food to farms overseas, the statement said.

It would also help the XPCC expand, and provide jobs abroad for Chinese labourers and boost their incomes, it said.

China has made substantial agricultural investments elsewhere, notably in South America. Beidahuang acquired 234,000 hectares to grow soya bean and corn in Argentina, while Chongqing Grain paid US$375 million for soya bean plantations in Brazil and US$1.2 billion for land in Argentina to grow soya beans, corn and cotton.”

via Ukraine to become China’s largest overseas farmer in 3m hectare deal | South China Morning Post.

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21/07/2013

How poverty wages for tea pickers fuel India’s trade in child slavery

The Observer: “When the trafficker came knocking on the door of Elaina Kujar’s hut on a tea plantation at the north-eastern end of Assam, she had just got back from school. Elaina was 14 and wanted to be a nurse. Instead, she was about to lose four years of her life as a child slave.

Saphira Khatun, whose daughter Minu Begum was trafficked to Delhi at the age of 12

She sits on a low chair inside the hut, playing with her long dark hair as she recalls how her owner would sit next to her watching porn in the living room of his Delhi house, while she waited to sleep on the floor. “Then he raped me,” she says, looking down at her hands, then out of the door. Outside, the monsoon rain is falling on the tin roof and against the mud-rendered bamboo strip walls, on which her parents have pinned a church calendar bearing the slogan The Lord is Good to All.

Elaina was in that Delhi house for one reason: her parents, who picked the world-famous Assam tea on an estate in Lakhimpur district, were paid so little they could not afford to keep her. There are thousands like her, taken to Delhi from the tea plantations in the north-east Indian state by a trafficker, sold to an agent for as little as £45, sold on again to an employer for up to £650, then kept as slaves, raped, abused. It is a 21st-century slave trade. There are thought to be 100,000 girls as young as 12 under lock and key in Delhi alone: others are sold on to the Middle East and some are even thought to have reached the UK.

Every tea plantation pays the same wages. Every leaf of every box of Assam tea sold by Tetley and Lipton and Twinings and the supermarket own brands – Asda, Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and the rest – is picked by workers who earn a basic 12p an hour.

If it says Fairtrade on the box, or certified by the Rainforest Alliance or the Ethical Tea Partnership, it makes no difference: the worker received the same basic cash payment – 89 rupees (£1) a day, a little over half the legal wage for an unskilled worker in Assam of 158.54 rupees. To place that in context, a worker receives about 2p in cash for picking enough tea to fill a box of 80 tea bags, which then sells for upwards of £2 in the UK. The companies say they know the wages are low, and they are trying to make things better, but their hands are tied by the growers. The growers, who set the wages by collective bargaining, say it is all they can afford.

But there is a price for keeping wages so low, and it is paid by the workers who cannot afford to keep their daughters. When the traffickers come knocking, offering to take the girls away, promising good wages and an exciting new life, they find it hard to say no. “He said he would change our lives,” says Elaina, now 20. “The tea garden was closed when he came and my parents were not working, so my father wanted to send me.”

The trafficker had promised excitement and glamour: instead she started work every day at 4am and worked until midnight, and though he promised to give her 1,500 rupees a month, she was never paid. He kept her as a prisoner, unable to leave the house or contact her family.

“His wife was suspicious about what was happening. I told her he had raped me but he denied it and told me to shut up my mouth,” she says. “After that, I was always crying, but he kept me locked in the house. I was afraid. I had no money and he threatened that I would end up in a brothel.”

She was saved only when he sent her to a new owner who, on learning her story, sent her home.”

via How poverty wages for tea pickers fuel India’s trade in child slavery | World news | The Observer.

Posted in agriculture, deficit, demographics, India alert, Labour, Low income, poverty | 1 Comment »

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