China Agriculture View

What is organic agriculture?
The term “organic” is defined by law (see “Legal” section below), as opposed to the labels “natural” and “eco-friendly”.Organic agriculture is defined as “an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity.

Organic agriculture prohibits the use of synthetic herbicides and pesticides, genetically-modified organisms or synthetic fertilizers. Growth hormones, antibiotics and slaughter by-products are not allowed in organic livestock production. Federal organic rules prohibit the use of sewage sludge (biosolids) or irradiation.

Marketing
Both people own health, as well as the health of the environment, motivates consumers to pay a higher price for organic foods.  According to the Organic Trade Association, the market for organic products has increased by 20% per year for the past 12 years. Organic products are found in mainstream supermarkets as well as specialty natural food stores.

China Organic Agriculture
In the past, farmers have tried to increase yields with modern nitrate-based fertilizers, but this has had damaging side-effects on soil health. ‘The return to more natural farming methods for organic production would allow the land to recover and would be a plus to the environment.Organic production has attracted over the past years an increasing political recognition by the Chinese government for its role in protecting the environment.The China Greenfood Development Centre (CGFDC) was established in 1992 under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture.CGFDC formulates programme, policies and plans for developing Green Food; it also administers the use of the Green Food label and organizes the formulation of the various standards for Green Food.

The benefit of organic food for our health
A growing number of consumers, and especially those dealing with chronic illness, are switching to organic food.Organic foods are a simple way to reduce an individual’s toxin burden of pesticides and food additives, increase their nutrient intake, and perhaps alter their consumption patterns away from less healthy choices.Organic food isn’t a luxury. It’s how food’s supposed to be, and a valuable part of any regimen intended to maintain, improve, or restore health.

Wine is becoming more popular a drink during business meetings.As the alcohol market gets increasingly competitive in China, many Chinese liquor companies are looking to expand market overseas.

The majority of companies going abroad have initialized or plan to begin their overseas development in Southeast Asia, where traditional Chinese alcohol already is very popular. Many also already export to the more developed markets of North America and Europe. 

All respondents plan to export branded products as their main means of developing their overseas presence. A minority of those companies already going abroad are also considering ODI and M&A. Tsingtao Beer, for example, is building a plant in Thailand in order to avoid import duties on beer.

While demand in nearby Asian countries is encouraging a majority of respondents to expand overseas, cultural differences pose a significant challenge to many respondents as they look to enter non-Asian markets, particularly those whose major products are traditional Chinese alcohols. Liquors such as baijiu and huangjiu are very different in taste and smell from beverages traditionally consumed in the West and other parts of the world.

While baijiu and huangjiu may not fly off the shelves worldwide in the near future, demand for traditional Chinese alcohols in neighboring countries will provide respondents with the opportunity to overcome other challenges described above.

Last year, an earthquake happened in the southwest of China. All people of China contributed for the disaster area. But after one year, many people are facing financial problems in rebuilding their homes.

Zhang Ping, minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said some impoverished people could not get bank loans to rebuild their homes because of their tough economic situation and limited incomes.

The official called for forceful measures to ensure the rebuilding of homes for poverty-stricken households and aid to address their financial problems, material and labor shortages.

Other problems found were slow progress in the reconstruction of urban homes, reduced financing capacity of rural financial institutions for small and medium-sized enterprises and shortages of building materials and technical support for the quake-hit region, according to Zhang.

Reconstruction was under way for nearly 2,800 schools and more than 1,500 medical institutions, accounting for more than 75 percent and 60 percent, respectively, of the total.

Nearly 70 percent of students in the quake zone had moved into permanent school buildings and the percentage would rise to 95 by the end of this year, according to the official.

All students in the region would be back in permanent school buildings next March, he said.

With the development of agriculture technology,Plenty of labours are released from agriculture industry, and the number of farm population is falling these years.

At the end of 2006, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, 70.8 percent of the people employed in rural areas were engaged in some type of agriculture, such as farming, forestry and livestock breeding. That was nearly 5 percentage points down from the end of 1996, the NBS said.

The number of migrant rural workers stood at 130 million, nearly 60 million more than a decade earlier, the NBS said, citing China’s second national agriculture census.

There were 530 million people in the labor force in rural regions and about 480 million, 90 percent, were working as of the end of 2006, according to the census results.

The findings, from the second national agriculture census in 2006, reflected conditions among 226 million rural households nationwide.

China’s rural survey is the largest of its kind in the world. It collects data on agricultural production, the labor force and employment, living conditions and the environment of rural communities.

June 14, 2009, China and sudan had become partners in agriculture industry. This mean that Sudan and China would focus on developing the agriculture. Of course, this is a good news to each of countries.

“Sudan wants to focus its efforts with China in the field of agriculture and it will be the integration of roles between the two countries to achieve the common interest,” said minister Awad Al-Jaz, adding that “the opportunity is mature for China to enter this area of wider doors.”

China  has gradually worked out a way fit to its own agricultural conditions and rural development, and has accumulated therefore a large number of successful experience and mature technology.

Sudan is the third partner of China in Africa. The volume of trade exchange between the two countries is 8.18 billion US. Also the investments of Chinese companies in Sudan amounted to 13.1 billion U.S. dollars while the non-financial investment jumped to ten billion U.S. dollars.

Expanding the agricultural cooperation between the two countries, China and Sudan would boost food security and economic sustainable development, and achieve a win-win situation.