China Agriculture View

China’s central government has allocated 28.6 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) to support farmers, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement Monday.

The bulk of the funding — 18.6 billion yuan — would be used to subsidize farmers in growing improved varieties of crops such as rice, corn, and cotton.

The other 10 billion yuan would subsidize purchases of farm machinery such as sowers and reapers, said the statement issued to Xinhua.

The funding aimed to improve motivation in agricultural production, and stabilize the country’s grain production, according to the statement.

Farmers across the country would be eligible for the subsidies.

The funding was on top of 86.7 billion yuan of subsidy funding to grain-growing farmers nationwide in February.

The financial support for agriculture came as severe drought continued in the nation’s west and south.

The National Meteorological Center (NMC) issued a drought alert on Sunday warning the severe drought would continue over the next three days.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said Saturday the drought, which started at the beginning of February, had affected 4.64 million hectares of arable land and left 12.7 million people and 8.4 million heads of livestock short of drinking water.

Potatoes are grown from ’seed’ potatoes which grow better if they are allowed  to ’sprout’ before planting. First purchase the seed potatoes in late Januaryc. These are available from seed catalogues or your local garden centre.

A potato plant will grow in most soils as long as it has been well dug. The soil should be clear of large lumps and stones. Add as much compost as is available, or bonemeal (or similar) at the time of digging. It is a good idea to prepare the soil in mid November or December to allow it to settle before planting and let the compost begin to break down. Although not fussy about the soil type, the potato prefers a slightly acidic soil, so do not add lime before, during or after planting.

The detail instructions are as follows:
Compare the size of your sweet potato to the size of your jar to make sure your jar is large enough.

Push three or four toothpicks into the side of the sweet potato. The toothpicks should be forming a circle around the middle of the sweet potato.

Place one end of the sweet potato down into the jar. The toothpicks should be long enough to cover the edge of the jar holding the upper half of the sweet potato out of the jar.

Fill the jar with water until the bottom half of the sweet potato is almost covered by the water.

Place the jar in a window so that it can have access to sunlight as it is now a growing plant. In about two to three weeks you will notice that the little potato buds have formed roots down into the water. Be sure to keep adequate water in the jar to promote the growth of the plant.

Watch for the green leaves to start sprouting from the top of the potato. It will really start to grow pretty fast by this time. The leaves will resemble a vine.

Replant your new sweet potato plant or vine into a pot or hanging basket when the leaves and roots have really taken off. Tend to your new sweet potato plant as you would any other green plant. You can also just keep the sweet potato in the jar and enjoy watching how long all the vines of the plant become.

* Little impact on US corn, soy exports amid dollar bounce

* Cancellations seen no more than in typical years

* South American infrastructure to be tested by big crops

CHICAGO, Feb 11 – A resurgent U.S. dollar is unlikely to trigger mass cancellations of U.S. corn and soybean purchases in favor of South American supplies despite sinking prices in Brazil and Argentina due to huge crops.

Any decision to scrap U.S. sales currently on the books will hinge more on whether the South American countries can reliably load and ship more than their usual volume of grain to meet rising world demand, traders and analysts said.

Both Brazil and Argentina, the world’s top corn and soybean exporters behind the United States, are expecting record-large soy crops and bumper corn crops this year.

“There are big crops coming out of South America which will compete against the U.S. this summer as soon as they are readily available. But we’ll have to wait and see how they can handle the big export programs for corn and soybeans from a logistical point of view,” said Shawn McCambridge, analyst with Prudential Bache Commodities.

Poor roads, old trucks and reoccurring farmer protests in Argentina all threaten to slow the movement of crops.

“We could see some cancellations of what’s on the books already, but I just don’t think that it will be anything more than we see in a normal year,” he added.

The dollar climbed to a seven-month peak against a basket of major currencies last week, making dollar-denominated commodities more expensive for those holding other currencies.

But a substantial drop in corn and soybean prices coincided with the greenback’s climb, more than offseting the currency’s negative impact on exports. Corn futures have fallen 14 percent and soybeans by 7 percent since the release of a key U.S. Agriculture Department crop report on Jan. 12.

“We’ve seen some strengthening in the dollar, but we’re still near these historical lows. Maybe at the margin it makes some slight difference, but I don’t see it as being a huge game-changer in the export world,” said Marty Foreman, analyst with Doane Advisory Services.

“If you go back and try to correlate exports with changes in the dollar, it’s pretty hard to find much,” he said.

PENDING SHIPMENTS

One reason traders have been nervous about the huge South American crop is that the United States still has to ship 9.4 million tonnes of soybeans by the end of the marketing year on Aug. 31, 47 percent more than at the same point a year ago.

Nearly 12 million tonnes of U.S. corn remain unshipped, 39 percent more than last year.

But shipments as a percentage of total sales are only slightly behind last year, with 73 percent of total soybean sales shipped and 60 percent of corn sales shipped, according to U.S. Agriculture Department data.

U.S. soybean export shipments were expected to remain brisk through mid-March, which should take soybean shipments to more than 80 percent of total sales, before freshly harvested South American soy floods the market and U.S. shipments slow.

The second half slowdown in soy shipments will free up U.S. port capacity to load more corn.

But some analysts warned that cheaper South American corn may undercut U.S. sales if China’s demand for imported soybeans slows and frees up port capacity in Brazil or Argentina.

“It may come down to the value of the elevation,” said one U.S. corn trader. “If South America has less capacity to load corn, that could keep our corn sales up here.”

Importers are also keenly aware that disputes between Argentina’s farmers and government over farm export taxes often delay grain and soybean deliveries during harvest. That uncertainty supports typically benefits the far more stable U.S. export market.

The big influx of supplies, which have already begun to arrive at some Brazilian ports, are sure to put South America’s grain handling infrastructure to the test this year.

In Chinese the word for alcohol “jiu” is used to mean all types of alcoholic beverages, from ‘pijiu’ (beer) to liquors (just called ‘jiu’) to grape wine (’putao jiu’).Even in modern China alcoholic beverages are generally classed by the general population by how much intoxication it delivers for the money.

In ancient China, since alcohol was regarded as a sacred liquid it was only used when people made sacrificial offerings to Heaven, Earth or significant ancestors. After the Zhou Dynasty, alcohol was deemed as one of the Nine Rites and every Dynasty since, placed heavy emphasis on alcohol administration, setting up special ministries to manage alcohol production and banqueting. Later, along with the development of zymotechnics and brewery, alcohol became much more of an ordinary, everyday drink. Thus, many of the daily customs involving alcohol evolved.

Ordinary Chinese people today have always just used alcohol to help them celebrate the happiness in their lives. In China, a banquet known as “Jiu Xi” means an alcohol banquet and the life of every person, from birth to death, should have pauses for drinking banquets starting a month or 100 days after a baby’s birth when the parents invite people in for a drink. When someone builds a new house, marries, starts a business, makes a fortune or lives a long life, he should invite people in for a drinking session. In modern times it is a pity that the games that go with drinking are not the elegant ones of the past that involved poetry or music. Today, drinkers just play simple finger-guessing games along with a lot of heavy drinking. It also seems today that friendship depends only on the volume of drink being consumed. “If we are good friends, then bottoms up; if not, then just take a sip” is a common phrased exchanged during gatherings.

Famous Chinese liquors, wines

Fen jiu – this wine was dated back to Northern and Southern Dynasties (550 A.D.). It is the original Chinese white wine made from sorghum. Alcohol content by volume: 63-65%.
Mao Tai jiu – this wine has a production history of over 200 years. It is named after its origin at Mao Tai town in Guizhou Province. It is make from wheat and sorghum with a unique distilling process that involves seven iterations of the brewing cycle. This wine is made famous to the western world when the Chinese government served this in state banquets entertaining the US presidents. Alcohol content by volume: 54-55%.
Gao Liang jiu – Goa Liang is the Chinese name for sorghum. Besides sorghum, the brewing process also use barley, wheat etc. The wine was originated from DaZhiGu since the Ming Dynasty. Nowadays, Taiwan is a large producer of gao liang jiu. Alcohol content by volume: 61-63%. Mei Gui Lu jiu (rose essence wine) – a variety of gao liang jiu with distill from a special species of rose and crystal sugar. Alcohol content by volume: 54-55%.

Yuk Bing Shiu jiu – a rice wine with over 100 year history. It is made of steamed rice. It is stored a long period after distillation. Alcohol content by volumne: 30%.
Sheung Jing (double distill) and San Jing (triple distill) Jiu – two varieties of rice wine by distilling twice and three times respectively. Alcohol content by volume: 32% and 38-39% respectively.

This series of pepper’ photos were taken by Chen Yi works as a civil servant It took the photographer three months in 2003 to finish this group called ”Life”.

BEIJING, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) — The quality of China’s agricultural produce including vegetables, domestic animals and aquatics was improved in 2009, the Ministry of Agriculture said Monday.

The ministry released an annual report based on monitoring results of agricultural products, saying 96.4 percent of vegetables had met safety standards in 2009, up 0.1 percentage points year on year.

The rate was 99.5 percent for domestic animals, up 0.8 percentage points, and 97.2 percent for aquatic products, up 1.5 percentage points.

The monitoring of fruits, mushrooms and tea, for the first time in 2009, found 98 percent, 95.2 percent, and 94.8 percent of products in the three categories met standards.

In 2009, the inspections became more detailed, covered more categories, and were carried out in 259 large and medium-sized cities, compared with only 36 major cities previously, the ministry said.

The ministry said it would step up the control over the use of prohibited pesticides and veterinary drugs in 2010 in order to further improve the quality and safety of agricultural produce.

BERLIN, Jan. 17 (Xinhua) — As climate change poses a great challgenge to China’s agricultural sector, the government and farmers should tackle it in a scientific and systematic way, Chinese Vice Minister of Agriculture Niu Dun said in an interview with Xinhua.

Climate change has posed great threats to the traditional farming sector, and extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, hailstorm, tropical storms, have ruined harvests far more often than before, Niu said.

He was in Berlin to attend the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture, held during the 75th International Green Week in Berlin, the world’s largest agricultural and food fair.

“The destructive power of climate change has reminded us of theneed to view the issue with a multi-dimensional perspective,” he said. “We should tackle the challenges by renewing the agricultural system and continuously developing the country’s economy.”

The Chinese government would help farmers, herdsmen and fishermen create a sustainable mode of production by applying new technologies with lower costs and lower emissions, Niu said.

“The government will intensify investment of agricultural infrastructure and projects and impart more scientific knowledge and climate-friendly concepts to farmers,” the vice-minister said.

“We want to build a comprehensive service system in the rural areas to offer multi-facet assistance to agriculture, such as providing peasants with quality seeds, machinery and advanced technologies,” he said.

All these could help cut down losses caused by climate change and improve rural living standards, Niu said.

Despite unfavorable weather conditions and the international financial crisis, China’s total grain yield was expected to hit a record high of 530.8 billion kg in 2009, the sixth consecutive year of growth. The per capita annual net income of Chinese farmers has exceeded 5,000 yuan (735 U.S. dollars), up more than 6percent from 2008, according to the latest data.

At the forum, Niu rejected accusations that China blocked a deal last month at the Copenhagen climate change conference. “China has set the new target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions per unit of the GDP by 40-45 percent by 2020 from the 2005 level,”he told 50-plus foreign agriculture ministers.

“Above all, it was not conditional or linked with commitments by any other countries,” he said.

Under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities in addressing climate change, “China has demonstrated its highly responsible attitude towards the international community and future generations,” the Chinese official said.

Some 1,600 exhibitors from 56 countries were taking part in the10-day annual fair, showcasing their best farm produce, livestock,farm machines, garden tools and newly-developed technologies.

Niu told Xinhua that attending the forum offered a chance to “broaden our vision about new trends of modern agriculture.”

China’s grain enterprises purchased 287.6 million tons of grain from peasants in 2009, effectively stabilizing domestic grain prices and protecting farmers’ interests, said head of the State Administration of Grain Nie Zhenbang Monday.

China had raised minimum purchase prices for wheat and rice again in 2009, by 13 to 17 percent, to add income for farmers, said Nie at a national meeting in Beijing.

The measure of minimum purchase prices increased peasants’ income by about 40 billion yuan ($5.86 billion) last year, he said.

Administration figures showed State-run grain enterprises bought 163.2 million tons of grain last year.

The Administration has been promoting reforms among State-run grain enterprises and reported 18,163 State-run grain enterprises by the end of 2009, down 65 percent from 1998.