How China is buying up America's food supply

American Thinker ^ | 05/05/2020 | Ziva Dahl

[SeekAndFind]

A Sioux Falls meatpacking plant was forced to close when it became the epicenter of COVID-19 in South Dakota. Three weeks after executives from its Chinese owner, WH Group, visited the plant, a month after President Trump’s ban on travel from China, nearly 600 of Smithfield Foods’ 3700 employees tested positive for the virus, as have 135 additional people in close contact with employees.

Smithfield Foods was started in 1936 by a family in Virginia. Today, the Chinese own Armour and the famous Smithfield hams, together with the most quintessential American brand of all -- Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, with its iconic annual eating contest.

In 2013, Smithfield Foods was bought by the Shanghui Group, later rebranded as the WH Group, for $4.7 billion. It remains the largest total acquisition of a U.S. company by the Chinese. With that purchase, the Chinese owned one in four pigs raised in the U.S. and, by adding 146,000 acres, continued to be the world’s largest buyer of American farmland.

The purchase was underwritten with a $4 billion Bank of China loan facilitated by the Chinese Communist Party. The deal was an integral part of the CCP’s 2011 five-year plan to improve the Chinese economy with purchases of overseas farmland and food processing companies. Food is poised to become the oil of the 21st century, with demand increasing for a scarce resource. The CCP identified meat processing as a strategically important industry and, with the Smithfield acquisition, China gained access to the world’s most advanced animal processing technology. Former Smithfield CEO Larry Pope said, “In many respects, this is carrying out the (Chinese) government’s five-year plan, which is to improve the quality and the security of their food supply.”

The Chinese consume half of the world’s pork production

[Deplorable American1776]

Look at some foods in the supermarkets and meats are owned by China and Brazil... We need to seize all foreign food assets in the USA and then float the shares to AMERICANS...

[ncpatriot]

That is really scary. Had not thought of that until I read this article.

[daniel1212]

nearly 600 of Smithfield Foods’ 3700 employees tested positive for the virus, as have 135 additional people in close contact with employees.

And yet as you also provided, 370 Workers at Missouri Pork Plant Test Positive for Coronavirus – All Are Asymptomatic

[daniel1212]

One would think we could make millions of N-95 masks per month.

China supplanted more than that industry in its long-range plan, knowing that the industrial ability of the US was integral to victory in war, by the grace of God, which war China plans for with the US:

For instance, in the past,

The United States built and launched 141 Aircraft Carriers of all classes during the war. To protect them we built 498 escort ships (Corvettes and Frigates) As well as 349 destroyers

How ridiculous was American production in World War 2? [images at link]

This is Willow Run. It was a B-24 plant built by Ford to mass produce the bomber. It ran its line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and produced a complete B-24 every 63 minutes on average. At peak, it produced 100 bombers in just two days.

America had 18 dry docks building Liberty Ships during WW2. Whereas typically riveted ships of the day took months to build, the Liberty Ships went from nothing to ready to launch in an average of 42 days in those dry docks. They were welded instead of riveted, and only built for a 5-year life span. Forty-two days doesn’t seem very fast? Well I did say that was an average. The first Liberty ship took 230 days to complete. The fastest built ship took less than five days. That is a 14,000 ton ship from laying the keel to launch in less than five days. We built 2,710 of these ships during the war.

Between the nine plants, 49,234 Sherman tanks were built during the war, accounting for about half of the tanks the US produced during the war. Yeah, half again. -Quora ^ | 2019 | Chris Morehouse

Thank God for those who served, and for those who enabled such production for the purpose of fighting evil empires. Yet now the Navy knows how to marry men with men, and thinks it is wise to have men and women work (etc.) together on subs, and all overall the military is committed to helping the enemies within, saluting the Leftist politically correct flag. On her present course of war against God, the day will come when it is said, "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" (2 Samuel 1:27)

A while ago I posted, How ridiculous was American production in World War 2 ? [images at link]

[1Old Pro]

We’ve fallen to great depths, almost insurmountable, especially with more of the same.

[GOPJ]

JOHNNY CHUNG: "Gotta put coins in---ka-ching---to make Clintons do something.

Too bad we don't have a free press where some reporter could ask Hillary about this...

[abigkahuna]

There should have been a national call for citizens to raise vegetable gardens, chickens for eggs and pigs and cows for meat. 4-H, and others could be helpful in those endeavours. But it is probably not a food shortage, but a supply shortage. Still, Victory Gardens are a wise move for citizens, no matter the size or quanity of vegetables grown.