Posted on 06/28/2014 4:12:12 PM PDT by blueplum
JENSEN, UTAH — It’s easy to find the largest Chinese-owned hay farm in the United States. It sits 189 miles east of Salt Lake City, on a stunningly scenic bend of the Green River. After driving past the only gas station in Jensen, population 400, a visitor crosses the river, turns left and is soon surrounded by a meticulously managed, 22,000-acre ranch, lush with green alfalfa.
Nearly all of it is destined for China. :snip:
Simon Wen Shao, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen who’s a co-owner of the Utah alfalfa farm, acknowledged that locals had acted warily when his company purchased the ranch. Friends of his farm manager, Frank Biggs, immediately chided Biggs for “working for the communists.”
Shao said those concerns had eased as his company had attempted to build ties in the community, buying new farm equipment and modernizing the ranch. One of his first steps was to rename the historic property “Escalante Ranch” after the previous owner had dubbed it “Thunder Ranch.”
“I think local people liked that decision,” he said during a tour of the farm. “It sounds better than Red Dragon Ranch.”
:snip:
Michael J. McKee, a Uintah County commissioner, said that many local growers recognized that foreign demand for alfalfa helped raise the price for their crop, aiding the county’s farm economy. Still, McKee acknowledged he’d heard from a few constituents who want “our land here to be held by American farmers.”
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
from this:
The other: How could it possibly make economic sense to ship a bulky product such as alfalfa hay 7,000 miles to China?
The answer, said Zhang, involves the enormous U.S.-China trade imbalance. Because China ships so many goods to West Coast ports,
without an 'enormous...trade imbalance' there wouldn't be all those empty container ships offering large discounts for China-bound freight. It's only because of the large discounts that exporting alfalfa becomes profitable. Foreign demand drives domestic price.
Careful. You are arguing for a free trade agreement with China.
“Way things are going we will all work for the Chinese one day. Gee, thanks Obama!”
Thank Clinton first...he started this atrocity. And remember that ‘Clinton’ equals both ‘Bill and Hill’.
And now we are getting to the nut of the problem: how high do you think we should raise taxes on ourselves so that alfalfa farmers can charge us more for their product?
Thank you Deadrock,
Maybe some will get it. I’m tired of Americans getting shafted in any FREE trade we do.
Are they taking water or wetlands that is needed by some endangered species?
Should that be allowed?
I'll wait for the Buchanan Brigade to chime in.
“Compete against third worlders, we see where that’s headed. That’s why many of us in our 50’s have been sidelined despite years of experience.”
People set up (legitimate) businesses to maximize shareholder wealth, not feeding egos. Competition can be local, national, or international. If you cannot compete, go whine with the gubmint to institute tariffs, taxes, penalties, regulations, and other crap that destroy a free, capitalist market economy.
Looks like they’re here already, and looking to pick your pocket. LOL
Mr. Shao’s citizenship is a fraud.
Let me know which side he’ll be on in a war with China.
Which tells you all you need to know about whether he should own our land.
And then there's the side angle that, while the enviroweenies want to eradicate every cow from the prairie in the USA, we're raising crops to feed more cows elsewhere.
So if America can’t be first then we don’t deserve to exist. Got it.
You’re a traitor.
They really don’t even buy our technology to copy it. We pay them to build it and give them everything they need to steal it.
You’re the TOOL I was looking for. I was an engineering designer most of my life. The companies I worked for made millions off of my talent and skills. Cannot compete, what an absolutely stupid statement. Americans put men on the moon because of guys like me. I was a NASA, AIR FORCE, DARPA designer. That’s right we can’t even put a man in orbit now, no thanks to tools like you I’m sure.
How much money do you want? Is it ok if I slip you a twenty now and then? Why get the government involved?
That’s great, but hardly a rebuttal to the OP’s comments. Since you feel you have a great grasp of economics, can you please explain how you would fix the problem you see?
China produces 20% of the food in the world and has roughly 62% the arable land the US does.
I confess I don’t get it. If alfalfa is more valuable in China, why not just buy it at hay auctions like everybody else? Would growing it under contract to ship to China be OK? America’s a big place. Lots of foreigners own American farms, mostly Brits and Dutch, at least as of a few years ago.
‘It’s amazing how quickly belief in a free market evaporates when it affects one personally in a negative way”
Since when did I say I was a free traitor.
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