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Protein and Transpacific Power

China’s Emergent Struggle for Food Security

https://fortisanalysis.substack.com/p/protein-and-transpacific-power

Excerpt:

“The thoughts of the Chairman [Mao] are always correct. If we encounter any problems, any difficulty, it is because we have not followed the instructions of the Chairman closely enough, because we have ignored or circumscribed the Chairman’s advice.”
Lin Biao, January 1962

“When there is not enough to eat, people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill.”
Mao Zedong, 1959

”It was the greatest contribution towards the whole of human race, made by China, is to prevent its 1.3 billion people from hunger.”
Xi Jinping, 2009

When Hurricane Ida made landfall on Sunday, 29 August at southern Louisiana as a violent and dangerous Category Four storm, there were reasonable fears of total devastation of the petrochemical infrastructure in the region. Given its location astride the Mississippi River delta river transportation hub (Image 1), and the region’s vast hydrocarbon supply chain activities (Image 2), the seaboard of Louisiana has become an indispensible energy resource for the United States.

...Overlooked in much of the mainstream analysis of Ida’s impact, however, is the critical role southern Louisiana plays in the United States’ agriculture industry. The various terminals (Image 3) in the lower Mississippi River (the 250-mile stretch of river from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico) are responsible for some 59% of US corn exports and 60% of US soybean exports, as of 2020.

...Taken together, the hopes of farmers, exporters, and buyers were pinned on the ports and terminals of South Louisiana being able to pick up the slack for export capacity as the US enters harvest. Unfortunately, this will not be the case until at least October or even November. Both of Cargill’s terminals in the region impacted by Ida are offline, with the 6-million bushel capacity facility in Reserve suffering extreme damage that could take months to repair. CHS Inc.’s primary export terminal at Myrtle Grove also suffered damage to the power lines that serve the facility, along with water intrusion to the grain handling equipment. Similarly, Archer Daniels Midland, Zen-Noh, LDC, and Bunge have reported power interruptions and varying degrees of damage at their regional facilities. Lastly, navigation on the lower Mississippi River continues to be slowed by flotsam and power outages.

Now, what does this have to do with China and the immediate future of the Transpacific power struggle?

In short - China is desperately short of crucial grains and oilseeds needed for domestic human and animal consumption. Understand, food security is not an unknown issue in China. So too is it widely known that CCP media organs and official ministries routinely lie about a range of food-related issues, from grain and oilseed production to hog population and slaughter figures. The CCP even went so far as to engineer the collapse and takeover of Swiss agriculture and chemical conglomerate Syngenta several years ago to short-path China’s rise to being a tier one agriculture research powerhouse alongside the United States, Japan, and the European Union.

The immediate causes of China’s food security woes are twofold:

An ongoing, multi-year outbreak of African Swine Fever

Two consecutive years of reduced grain and oilseed production due to widespread catastrophic flooding

Despite China’s rosy claims about its 2020 production, its year-long buying binge for available global inventory of grains and oilseeds indicates significant flooding-related production woes in several major agricultural reasons in the Yangtze River and Amur River basins. 2021 is shaping up to be potentially as bad. Notably, the critical crop-producing province of Heilongjiang (16% of China’s total corn production, and 40% for soybeans) is showing significant excess moisture stress during the critical corn development stages between pre-tassel and silking, with excess moisture also being a major factor in yield drag for soybeans during seed-fill. The general time period for both crops to reach these reproductive stages are July through end of August.

...Bringing it full circle to the devastation to US agri export capacity wrought by Hurricane Ida, there is now an imbalance of supply and demand such as we have not seen in a long time. Whereas before, China was able to make up shortfalls in domestic production by sourcing from the US, Brazil, Ukraine, Europe and others, that optionality is gone. The US’ primary grain and oilseed export hub of southern Louisiana lies in disrepair, with US yields expected to be basically at trendline, with unknown impact to grain and oilseed quality due to drought stress in some regions. Early indicators of crop quality are a bit worrisome, with the most recent USDA Crop Progress Report released on 30 Aug 2021 showing corn conditions at 60% Good/Excellent (62% last year) and soybeans at 55% Good/Excellent (66% last year). What is available to China will likely be of reduced quality and more expensive to transport from alternate US origins.

The news is not much better in China’s traditional breadbasket. Brazil’s safrinha (second corn crop) has historically been the export-maker for the country, with China a major buyer each year. However, due to disastrous planting conditions and weather challenges, production is expected be 20% lower versus last year, dragging corn exports down by 33% year-over-year. Though Brazil’s soybean production is about 9% higher than 2020, availability of bulk cargo vessels is constrained, with global dry bulk freight rates roughly 40% higher than the previous five-year peak (pre-2021) set in Q3 of 2019.

It appears Ukraine and Russia will have to pick up the slack from the grains side, as both countries are projecting 29% and 19% production increases over 2020, respectively. In terms of overall cost on an “FOB” basis (Free On Board, a term of sale that reflects cost to purchase the product and transport it from an origin port), Argentina is still the most competitive source of corn for China, but only produces about half the volume as Brazil. Oilseed (especially soybeans) availability looks stable worldwide with no significant production issues noted so far, but logistics constraints impact the trade as much as it does for corn, as well as enduring worries about weather challenges to crop quality (if not quantity).

...China consumes enormous quantities of animal protein products. Though it is middle of the pack in annual per-capita consumption at 49.3 kg (compared to the US at 100.7 kg), the overall appetites of 1.41 billion people generates demand for more than 90 million tons of pork, poultry, and beef products. The US, with its population being roughly a quarter of China’s, uses around 44 million tons of the same proteins per year. Further, China is far and away the global leader in aquaculture production (“farmed” marine protein, vice “capture” fisheries in the world’s oceans) at 68.4 million tons produced annually, while the US checks in at 490,000 tons. Similarly, China’s capture fishing activities utilizing its massive commercial fishing fleet is reported to generate another 14.4 million tons of protein, while US fishing is comparatively much smaller at 5.35 million tons. And yet with all of that effort, China cannot catch a break as Brazil has been forced to temporarily suspend all beef exports to China over an outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or “mad cow disease”), cutting off China’s source of around 71,000 tons per month of beef.

Adding all of this up, we see that China has an astoundingly large quantity of protein to produce and import for its population. Taken together with the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s fears of social upheaval due to food insecurity (and the stain upon the party from the Great Leap Forward), the impetus for much of China’s belligerence in global fishing and crackdowns on commodities trading become clear. Broadly speaking, the confluence of supply side and logistics disruptions has formed into a perfect storm, where China cannot as readily meet its current food demand through production, trade, acquiring foreign food manufacturers, and even illegal activities such as illicit fishing.

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Chinese company owns Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producing company. As I’ve said in the past when the 3G damn collapses not only will it devastate China’s ag industry, it could topple the CCP.