Food Shortages Loom As Chinese Farmers Face Trouble Amid Pandemic

Jilin Province in China has announced that efforts will continue to ensure that spring plowing continues despite a province-wide COVID-19 lockdown. However, online videos showed police interrupting farmers working in the fields throughout China.

Fearing the delay in spring plowing could lead to a food shortage, analysts say the crisis is beyond fallow fields, viable seeds and fertilizers are the real crisis Chinese farmers are facing.

Jilin, located in China’s corn belt, is an important processing and production region for the country’s cereals.

The lockdown has affected 24 million people and threatened the national food supply.

On April 6, Jilin authorities claimed that to safeguard the spring plowing, more than 80 percent of seeding sheds covering 19,768 acres of land were ready, and over 90 percent of corn and soybean seeds had been delivered.

However, online Chinese videos showed farmers from various parts of the country were removed as they plowed the fields by local police for violating lockdowns, and were subject to either detention or quarantine for 14 days.

The Chinese edition of The Epoch Times was only able to reach one local seed company to confirm the official line on the readiness of seeds. The staff member said the company had been closed since the lockdown in early March. “In the pandemic, everyone is staying at home for the PCR test,” she said, adding that she didn’t know when business will resume.

Liu is a Chinese journalist who requested anonymity. He believes the lack of viable seeds is more serious than the restrictions during lockdown.

He said: “Seeds and fertilizer are the two main things for spring plowing. But China’s viable grain seeds come in at a high price.”

According to Liu, many Chinese farmers have become victims of the opaque procurement practice in China. Some even had near-zero harvest because of bad seeds.

He explained that the seeds are controlled by foreign entities, and they are very expensive. “The farmers no longer keep the good seeds from previous harvest like in the old days,” he said.

Liu said: “Foreign companies control the technology of the seeds that come into China. Some domestic seed companies, completely out of touch with modern seed technology, even sold inferior seeds which they claimed as self-bred seeds. As a result, the farmers had a poor harvest.”

Liu blamed the many Chinese crop seed producers for the problems with the seeds.

Over the years, Chinese farmers have suffered economic loss owing to inferior seeds.

In one 2019 Chinese media report, a case of inferior seeds cost 205 farmers in Jiangxi Province around $726,000 loss, totaling 800 acres of fields.

In 2020, fake seeds led to no harvest in a 279-acre field involving 40 farmers in Inner Mongolia.

Chen Weijian is the chief editor of Chinese human rights magazine Beijing Spring.

He indicated the lockdowns will seriously affect the price and production of fertilizers and pesticides. “Without pesticides and fertilizers, there’s no productivity in the Chinese soil,” he said.

“I believe that the food crisis in China will become more prominent in two or three years,” he added, referring to the huge loss of farming land over the years of government-led rural land expropriation.

Recently, Beijing forced rural areas to restore farm fields in various parts of China. Some local officials responded to the latest policy by turning basketball courts and roads into farming fields by laying layers of soil on cement for plantation.

Chen said that this reveals the food shortage has reached an embarrassing point for Beijing.

"I mean, when I was a kid, my mom would say, “Eat your broccoli; children are starving in China.” To which I’d usually reply, “Then send them this broccoli!”"

My mom would say China too.

I remember reading once that there was starving in India and the USA had sent high-yielding planting seeds...They were so hungry that the minute the seeds arrived they were eaten.
Now...the problem was that the seeds had been pre-coated with some sort of pesticide and many died.

I've been grateful that I'm in the USA since I was a small child.

Mrs MFO and I as well have been in the stocking mode for the past year since Covid. I think Covid and toilet paper will be a walk in the park compared to what some Americans will experience in the ensuing months.

Please, I am not bragging but I have been employed as a Professor and Extension Beef Specialist at a major land grant University in the field of beef cattle nutrition. Escalating costs in energy feedstuffs, mineral, fertilizer and diesel is keeping me up at night with the added twist of drought conditions. I am outwardly concerned for the sustainability of those smaller/medium sized operation’s ability to stay in business.

Time will tell..

MFO

Prepper ping - Food and Seed Shortages (China) during a pandemic, assure future farm crop shortages through government interference (Compulsory Quarantine)
Farming is gambling and assumes many stable favorable conditions which generally remain outside of your control
Since China has already hoarded enough grain supplies to last them for 1 1/2 years, the threat exists to sustain high food prices even for years into the future

“Jilin, located in China’s corn belt, is an important processing and production region for the country’s cereals.
The authorities locked down the entire province on March 14.
The lockdown has affected 24 million people and threatened the national food supply. “

“On April 6, Jilin authorities claimed that to safeguard the spring plowing, more than 80 percent of seeding sheds covering 19,768 acres of land were ready,
and over 90 percent of corn and soybean seeds had been delivered. “
”However, online Chinese videos showed farmers from various parts of the country were removed as they plowed the fields by local police for violating lockdowns,
and were subject to either detention or quarantine for 14 days. “

” ..“Seeds and fertilizer are the two main things for spring plowing. But China’s viable grain seeds come in at a high price.”
According to Liu, many Chinese farmers have become victims of the opaque procurement practice in China.
Some even had near-zero harvest because of bad seeds. “
“He explained that the seeds are controlled by foreign entities, and they are very expensive.
“The farmers no longer keep the good seeds from previous harvest like in the old days,” he said. “ (Emphasis mine)

“Over the years, Chinese farmers have suffered economic loss owing to inferior seeds. In one 2019 Chinese media report, a case of inferior seeds cost 205 farmers in Jiangxi Province around $726,000 loss, totaling 800 acres of fields. In 2020, fake seeds led to no harvest in a 279-acre field involving 40 farmers in Inner Mongolia. “

(My comment) : When you are dependent on “bad seed” for your crop production, crop yields will be lower, or totally non-existant.
The article states that the only “good seed” is controlled by “foreign entities”.

Farming is the closest thing to financial gambling with many conditions that remain outside your control ; it is always about timing, weather conditions,
having good seed and fertilizer; when you have a late season planting even good seed will see a lower crop yield,
but you need to be in the field, even if it is just to sow in the crop.
If you don't get into the field even for a small crop , there will be no seed for the next years crop.
The fact that farmers who rely on good seed, can't keep seed over from one year to the next,
suggests that “good seed” may in fact be genetically modified and controlled by external foreign forces.

I recorded the later showing of that Tucker Carlson show so that I could make sure I’d heard everything correctly. I’m not sure when I’ve seen anything so disturbing since 9/11. The wailing and screaming of the Chinese people locked into their apartments, starving....made my blood run cold. And those so called “quarantine camps”. Hundreds of people and one toilet. One would be lucky if they didn’t contract hepatitis, cholera or typhoid.

This is much more of a warning to cosmopolitan Shanghai than anything to do with the China virus.

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