China Crops in Shortest Supply as Vanishing Farms Spur Rising Food Futures

[dkf]

Across the road from Zhao Yuanyi’s wheat field in China’s Shandong province, Chonche Group is expanding a rail-car factory on what used to be 227 hectares of farms. Nearby, Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. (175) makes sedans on an 87 hectare site that four years ago was covered by crops.

The factories sprawling from Jinan city, 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of Beijing, put Zhao on the front line of a clash between a policy of food self-sufficiency and industrial growth that made China the world’s second-biggest economy. Industrialization is winning, signaling prices for crops like wheat and corn will rise as China is increasingly unable to feed itself and vies for supplies on global markets.

China’s farmland shrank by 8.33 million hectares (20.6 million acres) in the past 12 years, Premier Wen Jiabao’s top agriculture adviser Chen Xiwen told reporters March 24. Land under cultivation has already fallen almost to the government’s 120 million hectare limit after being consumed by apartments, factories, desertification and a forestation campaign. Drought has also hit the country’s main wheat-growing region.

“China’s increased demand for agricultural commodities will mean an increase in prices for the entire world market,” said David Stroud, chief executive officer of New York-based hedge fund TS Capital Partners. “China can outlast any other bidders for the commodities it desires.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-18/china-crops-in-short-supply-as-fewer-farms-spur-food-futures.html

[GKirk]

1. Maybe we should all migrate back to the farm

so we can feed China. :(

[dkf]

2. We are known as the bread basket of the world.

[WatsonT]

4. Or stop the whole bio-ethanol scam

Hard to claim a food shortage when we apparently have food to burn.

[dkf]

5. It makes no sense whatsoever.

[xchrom]

3. Recommend